‘corrugated tipper bodies… big problem or not?

[Peter Normington]

Cast will be fine Ian.
just prep properly, and feed the vinyl into the grooves if the design permits, (if the groove is also a join I would slit after applycation)

Peter

[Ian Muir]

Thanks Peter, just wanted some confirmation really, started to get a panic attack cos there’s lots of tipper sides to do. As you say good prep and every yard or so there is a join that curves into the body like a roller shutter door so will slit at these points.
How about the chance of a digiprint, is the material too thick with laminate to follow these tight regular indents, even with heat does anyone think they will ‘pop’.

Ian :lol1:

[Ray Sturman]

Hi Ian,
Tipper bodies have fast become a bit of a specialty for me, over the last 3 months having now done about 30, some alloy/steel, some ribbed/flat I hope I have seen most of the problems that can come up.
If the truck bodies you have to do are new/unused the only problem you may have is temperature and condensation if you can get one in the workshop overnight (the thickness of metal takes a long while to warm) ready for next morning, near a heater if possible will help no end. If they have been freshly painted the only thing to watch for is craters where bead blasting has knocked the rust off. If its used alloy or steel bodies you’re doing, the worst thing is where they have stone aggregate tipped in at the quarry some stone always falls and hits the bodywork this leaves small gouges with even smaller sharp bits sticking out that create bubbles (hundreds of them) in the vinyl and its always worse one side of the truck. I have never used a heat gun and rivet brush so much in all my life 😕
The answer where a body is too rough, is to get them to rivet or weld an alloy name panel in place.

Hope this is of use to you, oh and have fun
Ray

ps I forgot to say that I have only ever used metamark 7 series vinyl on these as I was told that they would get wrecked inside 18-24 months and would need doing again, 7 series conformed well with heat to ribs and rivets.

[Ian Muir]

Thanks for the input Ray…. these tippers are alloy, unpainted, fairly clean and unscratched (apart from they do travel along small country lanes so get branch scrapes occasionally). None of the structural stuff (ribs etc) is on outside and it seems they load from the back up and over the roof with non hard stuff, no stones, no metal etc. It’s just these small vertical indents every 5" or so …
Maybe mactac 9800 would do the job (similar to 7 series I think – (a polymeric calendered vinyl) …

Thanks again

Ian :lol1:

[Ian Muir]

Just to confuse issue I’ve been recommended Avery 900 series to do the job (by Avery, but they would wouldn,t they)… I know it would work but do you think that’s overkill since there are no curves or rivets just indents all in the same direction.

If I laid the wording flat and then used heat to stretch the vinyl into the indents would a good polymeric such as mactac 9800 hold? I mention 9800 cos that’s the one with the exact colours I’ve already used on the cabs. After all 751 started out as a good polymeric I believe.

Alternative perhaps is to try feed the vinyl into the indents as I go working vertically from the centre of each letter and graphic each way so minimal stretching required.

Ian :lol1: