Anybody have experience with wrapping a car? Wanting to wrap my wrx but have no idea where to start besides 3m = good.
Anybody have experience with wrapping a car? Wanting to wrap my wrx but have no idea where to start besides 3m = good.
Avery is also good. Buy more wrap than you need if you've never wrapped before, there's a good chance you'll need to redo something.
Pick somewhere undercover that won't be affected by wind/breeze. Foreign debris under your wrap is going to make it look crappy and wrap sticks to it's self alot harder than it sticks to paint. On the topic of paint, make sure it's clean.
Start with smaller areas and less complicated shapes first to help build up a feel for working with wrap.
Outside of that, watch some tutorials on YouTube while you're waiting for someone else here who's got better wrap advice for you
In reply to daeman :
I’ll be able to do the whole job inside which seems to be a big plus for self install.
Knifeless tape is your friend.
Having a helper takes the difficulty down about 10 notches.
Check with your vinyl manufacturer for the proper method to introduce heat. Some want a torch, some want a heat gun, some don't care.
Before you start, take good note of where all the various body lines and curves are. You're going to need to introduce seams, so make sure you put them where they can kind of disappear in the shape of the car.
It makes a real difference to remove things like lights, door handles, and weatherstripping. You can use the squeegee to tuck the vinyl under/into those things, but removing those things and having the vinyl well-secured way out of sight is the eleveninator.
Give the car a really good wash and wax before you start.
When you give it that wash and wax, be sure to get the underside of things like rockers and fenders. Those places are really hard to clean and your vinyl is going to need to stick there.
Use an adhesion promoter/primer around the edges and the seams.
Start with the flattest parts of the car. You'll get a feel for how much stretch the vinyl has and how it sticks and handles. Remove the gas door and wrap it first - it's a great little bit that you can experiment with and it doesn't require a lot of vinyl.
Be prepared to go through a lot of razor or X-Acto blades.
The only way to learn just how much heat-and-stretch the vinyl can take is to burn through and tear it about a dozen times. As said before, order plenty of extra vinyl so you can start the section over.
The vinyl will expand and shrink on the car, so make your seams overlap by a centimeter or two.
When you've stuck the vinyl to the center and you're trimming the excess, you need more than you think, so don't trim that much.
In reply to wae :
So what’s the purpose of the seams? To allow stretch?
Great question, great tips. Thank you all
Anybody used the brand Vvivid? It’s really cheap.
The Blue is Vvivid brand Electric Blue Metalic Matte (I think discontinued color.) I had never wrapped anything before. It came out "good" with some rookie mistakes. I look forward to using Vvivid again. I bought it off Amazon.
Vvivid has improved vastly. I used their rainbow glitter black to wrap my faded silver door accent trims and it was easy to use and still looks great.
Would vvivid be a good choice for a beginner? Looking around it seems like their new stuff is very easy to work with
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