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what are the Pro’s and Con’s of a wrapping course?
Hi All
For somebody who does not have a printer and has not done many vehicles what would be the pro’s and con’s of doing a wrapping course.
Cheers
Warren
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9 Replies
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Warren,
I’d be a bit worried that unless I was wrapping often (which you may not if you are not set up with a cost effective outlet i.e. your own printer) I might forget what I had been shown and not develop the skills that only the ‘on the job’ experience (over and over again) would get me.
ps I haven’t forgotten the new photo – the boy looks great in all the photos my wife takes but I can’t get one of me looking like anything other than a cross-eyed monkey fool.
Cheers!
Gareth
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A-up Warren!!!
Try some cast vinyl or macflleet to practice with mate. going on a wrap course for printed vinyls I think would be pointless at this stage.
Going on a wrap course would be great but it may be a long time before
you get to practice on your own, by which time you’d probably have forgotten most of what you had been told.
Dig deep in those pockets mate and buy a printer!! 😉 -
i found that after the lad came back from a course that he was fitting std vinyls better. especially in the difficult areas.
and watching him has helped my fitting so win winchris
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I dunno – I’m not convinced. Mostly I think that vehicle wrapping is "the emperors new clothes". By that I mean yes it’s great and very impressive. But when you look at how long it takes to do (not just the wrapping itself – but the design, printing and laminating) then it needs to be priced many times higher than simply applying computer cut vinyl. Yet vehicle wrapping is seen by many customers as a cheap way to avoid a costly re-spray. I don’t think I could realistically wrap more than 1 vehicle in a day – allow another day for design time and a third for printing and you’re probably looking at a minimum 3 days per vehicle wrap. How does this compare to the sort of profit you can make on standard cut vinyl liveries?
An enlightened customer may say "I don’t care if it costs twice as much as a normal livery – the reality is it needs to cost 5- 10 times more for the signmaker to make the same profit 😕
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tend to agree phill but if the customer is paying well then we must give him the best we can.
i prefer to do partial wraps and cut lettering, that i think is the best of both worlds
chris
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I have to agree somewhat with Chris, a wrap course will help with normal fitting, and partial wraps can be quite profitable. even just using as Karl says Macfleet or single colour cast for colour backgrounds. Its not just the application though, its applying so it stays applied…
If you can share a course so its not to expensive, I would say go for it if you can,
Peter
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My wrap training provided me with skills that help me applying any vinyl 10 times better. I learnt better squeegee techniques, how to stay out of trouble, which ways to manipulate the vinyl and so forth.
The debate about whether which way you can make more money in terms of cut vinyl compared to a printed wrap doesn’t really apply down here. All the cowboys have cutters. Some of them don’t charge a lot more then material costs. I’m usually about double the price on cut vinyl for nearly all the jobs I quote on vehicles.
I make more money on wraps. People who don’t invest money in printers cant compete and the ones that have invested in printers don’t act like cow boys either.
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I agree with Phill, I work mainly for small business’ and to be honest I can’t see many of them paying the sort of money I would need to charge for a wrap. Buying print is not hard so I concentrate on providing good printable files that others print and I apply, I keep designs manageable and practical to apply and it works for me. I wouldn’t get too ambitious with wrapping at an early stage.
Alan D -
Hi and thanks to all ( nice to see you again Karl)
I kept the question short and sweet to hear all different aspects of replies and has been enlightening.
I am not looking at getting in to wraps but thought it might be a good way to brush up my self taught technique. It would also give me a basic understanding of wrapping and how to deal with difficult areas on a vehicle when applying any type of vinyl graphic whether it’s printed or not.
As I am self taught there and not done too many vehicles I know there is lots for me to learn and thought a small investment in to some sort of training would be better than continuously learning by my mistakes on customers vehicles.
I agree with the comments about full wraps being very time consuming and as a 1 man company I would battle to do full wraps on my own anyway at this level I am at. Part wraps and how to deal with the difficult areas is what I am more interested in as then I can design better layouts as I don’t have to worry so much about certain areas of the vehicle.
These were my thoughts but wanted to hear everybody else’s opinions too.
Cheers
Warren
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