Cutting vinyl on car paintwork

[Peter Normington]

it takes experience, and should be done dry.

Peter

[Daniel Crank]

i fit subaru graphics and the side swooshes are huge so i do these wet, water only as it grabs as soon as its squeegee’d.
I have to cut around handles, so do others cut on the vehicle and do you have any tips…
Dan

[David Rogers]

I cut on the car a lot of the time when I need something trimmed or contoured after it’s been fitted.

Not had so much as a mark on the paintwork…and I’ve proved this live to several customers as they’ve stood there watching me cut on top of their pride & joy or £100k trucks. Why? Because I use a brand new, just out of the packet scalpel blade and SCORE the vinyl so that it ‘tears / cracks’ along the groove.

Might be an idea to start to learn dry fitting – it’ll save you tons of time & money once you do.

I’ll not stop doing it…

As for your customer showing you the damage – might bite you one day with someone demanding a repair / respray…do this on something a bit exotic…you get the picture.

I’ve picked up & kept several clients purely because their previous signmakers trashed their paintwork – in some cases so badly it started to rust…or they’ve used the brand new brushed alloy fuel tanks on an Iveco tractor unit as a glorified cutting mat. Muppets!

Rule is – if you wouldn’t do it to your own…don’t do it to theirs.

ps. Scoobie swooshes or not…fit it dry. Takes experience, but worth the effort.

[Peter Normington]

Size doesnt matter mate,
as I keep telling my wife,
but if done dry the vinyl is far easier to form round the handled, then cut with a scalpel, using the handle as a guide, and keeping the blade angled away from the cut line then the vinyl can be worked into the gap between the metal and plastic.

Sorry I shouldnt be telling you this, you could be a hairdresser.

(dont worry just a little joke)

Peter

[Daniel Crank]

When fitting dry should i lay the swoosh over the handle and heat the vinyl to form it around the handle, i tried this once before on a handle that protruded out a lot and it caused excess vinyl on the body, hard to explain really.

Give me a piece of window tint and i can do a one piece rear window in minutes but this dry fitting sounds scary…
What vinyl should i use for fitting dry, i using aslan and as soon as it touches the car it doesnt want to let go…

Any help will be most appreciated
cheers
dan

[Peter Normington]

All vinyl is best done dry, but some are easier than others,
You shouldn’t need heat on a flush type door handle,
but to get the vinyl to sit flat you need to work to the lump rather than away from it, difficult to explain without pictures,
if you are doing a lot of this type of work, I would recommend going on a wrap course, or at least buying full membership here, as there are demos that will help you.

Peter

[Phill Fenton]

Try to avoid cutting on paint whenever possible. However, sometimes it is not possible to avoid this so do as Dave has already suggested and use a brand new ultra sharp scalpel blade to cut the vinyl without penetrating the paint or laquer surface.

[Adam McGuire]

I trim vinyl on the vehicle as and when required, and haven’t had a problem. I fit all my graphcis dry, even on Subaru’s with raised handles. There is one customer I have who has changes his graphics 3 times in the last 18 months, and is talking about changing them again in a month or two. I rarely if ever have found anything more than a line on the paint where there is excess polish where I cut the vinyl.

There are only a few techniques that move over from vehicle tinting to graphics fitting. I agree the materials are similar in that they’re self adhesive etc, but vinyl reacts differently and faster to heat than window films do.

My very first Subaru was done wet, and it was the last time too. It just took too long! AND it had almost flush handles! I’ve since done that car twice more (wife of the customer mentioned above) and it’s due in again in 2 weeks to have a new design on it.

As for blades, I use my Olfa or NT Cutter, with a new tip. I started out cutting vinyl and window film designs by hand, so have a very steady hand and bucket loads of patience, but I still try to keep it to a minimum if I can. I tend to use panel gaps and trim as a guide and then squeegee into the gaps.

[Jason Xuereb]

Never cut on the paint. One day it will bite you in the bum. I did a sprinter van where the person who did the wrap before us had cut right through to the bare metal underneath.

There is a good article in the latest magazine on trimming around door handles here: http://emags.nbm.com/sb/20090401/full/pageflip.html