Boat Wrap – Never done 1 before

[Dan Osterbery]

Hi Sean,
we have done a few part wraps and one full boat wrap, so i am not a fountain of knowledge but may be able to offer some help. Prepping is a lot of cleaning and depending on what type of boat you are wrapping, that the surface is good enough.
We treat the same as a car, first wash with soap and water, then alcohol, then Hexis three step cleaning fluids. We always have used hexis vinyls for wrapping, so that’s we we used for boats.(on hexis website you can download a boat wrapping guide pdf) We then heat the vinyl as normal once its on, and then seal with Hexis Xylene sealer. (you can water it down with turps to get a better finish, i suggest you do some tests first) and when it is time to remove the wrap acetone eats the sealer so you can remove, and doesn’t damage the hull.(but again test the hull with acetone, somewhere discreet before you start.) I would also make it very clear to you customer that it is a wrap and needs to be cared for etc, and fenders without socks will damage it etc. If you installing near the antifoul, then you might need to add time to sand that down and remove, to get a decent straight line to finish to. Also if you are doing any joins, they must run from bow to stern, so the flap is going the same way as the water movement.

Goodluck

Dan