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first car wrap: sallys Car
My Daughter Sally has applied to study art at Dundee University and is busy putting together a portfolio of her work.
Alison and I suggested she should design a vehicle wrap for her car to include in her portfolio. This seemed like a great idea. Sally would have a free reign to design her car, and Alison and I would gain experience printing and applying the actual wrap.
Our Cadet is only 30" wide which limits us some what. Originally Sally wanted to wrap her car pink and then apply a series of swirls in chrome and black. I persuaded her to go for a random pattern instead of a solid colour to make use of the fact we were printing the background colour. Eventually after much experimentation she came up with a turquoise marble type effect that was created using Corel Draw. This was to be overlaid with chrome and black patterned swirls which would be on top of the wrap.
During the week I printed her design onto vinyl and after allowing it to dry for 24 hours – we overlaminated using clear vinyl (this was done by hand as we do not have a laminator). In total I printed about 7 metres (enough to do one side and the bonnet) – with the intention of printing more if todays efforts were successful
Today we spent six hours today applying the background colour. So far we have managed to wrap one complete side and the bonnet. Next weekend, we plan to finish wrapping the other side and the roof and rear of the car. Then finally, we will apply the chrome and black "Swirls".
Here are a series of photos showing six hours of hard work culminating in a half wrapped car.
To be continued next week:-
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51 Replies
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nice one phil….how did you find the material? look forward to seeing it finished 😀
nik
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looking good Phill can’t wait for next week, nice to see all helping but where were you 🙄
Lynn
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Nice marble effect Phill and nice colour too.
I think you shoud let your daughter take over and let you stay at home with your feet up mate. -
looking good keep going 😀
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Very nice indeed. Can’t wait to see the finished car.
I was thinking of wrapping my own car to gain some experience as well. Only have a little micra to get me to and from work. Just have to get the boss to pay for the materials! 😮
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is that a wrap material your using? with a wrap laminate?
does look good, might actually bring the value of the Y reg up a bit by making it look unique
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I think I’m more interested in how you manage to get the clear laminate on by hand without ruining the prints.
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I used to put it on wet before I had my laminator. I’ll be wrapping my car this week.First time and I’m slightly cakking myself. 😕
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quote Nicola Rowlands:nice one phil….how did you find the material?nik
It was in his vinyl rack 😛
Looks good Phil.
like it. -
Looks good so far matey. Can’t wait to see the finished article.
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well have not had any problems myself yet we also have a 30 inch printer
I print one day and laminate wet the next using metaguard 700 goes on well did 10 meters on Friday, its the long 3 meter runs that get a little tricky but we who cant afford a laminator or have the space have to suffer -
hm.. how did you convince a girl to go for blue and not pink.. amazing!
i wonder if it was to do with having more Cyan ink in stock then Magenta?!
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Dave I know that feeling well mate 😀
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quote :In total I printed about 7 metres (enough to do one side and the bonnet)
i thought oracal only gave out 5 mt samples 😉
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Lynn – I was taking the pictures, that’s why there’s no sign of me working on the car. 😀
The vinyl is Metamark MD7 overlaminated with Metaguard 900 the same material that I tried out on my van bonnet recently.
We applied the clear over laminate wet to avoid bubbles – but when we came to do the actual vehicle wrap, this was applied dry. This does not appear to have created any problems so far – but I’ll reserve judgment until the vinyl has been on for a while (a recent thread suggested that over laminate needs to be applied with a hot laminator to ensure the two layers of vinyl bond together properly.
I have been pleasantly surprised – it’s not as difficult as I thought, and with a bit more practice we should speed up the application quite a bit. By the end of today- the last piece we applied went on very quickly. The hardest part is working low down on the car – the bottom of the doors and the sills.
It’s surprisingly hard work though – quite tiring, but very satisfying to see the end result.
Having said all that – it’s a very time consuming process. Not just applying the vinyl, but the time also spent on design, printing and laminating. I think you need to charge quite a lot to make this process into a viable business. I recently saw a program on discovery called wheeler dealers. In one episode, they paid £1000 to get a VW van completely wrapped. Personally, I don’t think that is enough to justify all the work that is required.
Chris – I had to buy the vinyl 😥
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I’ve been told you Don’t need a hot laminator for wrapping jobs. A few firms I know have hot lams but don’t bother turning the heat on.
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nigel recently posted that u need very high temp… our avery also states a temp…
good on you phill and team, looks good so far -
quote Steve Underhill:quote Nicola Rowlands:nice one phil….how did you find the material?
nik
It was in his vinyl rack 😛
hope your going to sign uk (bully) 😉
nik
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I am the only one to spot the car charger box balancing on a tin of paint? I hope his vinyl racks are more secure 😀
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quote Dave Rowland:nigel recently posted that u need very high temp… our avery also states a temp…
good on you phill and team, looks good so farDave you need to read that whole thread to understand the need for the high temp,
wet applied laminate is not recommended for a wrap, by any manufacturers, but if you can get away with it I cant see a problem… untill it fails.
😳
good on you for trying phill
Peter
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quote Nicola Rowlands:quote Steve Underhill:quote Nicola Rowlands:nice one phil….how did you find the material?
nik
It was in his vinyl rack 😛
hope your going to sign uk (bully) 😉
nik
I am. :bigwink:
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Well done Phill,
I’ve ripped all the wrap of my Vito… not happy as it was looking a bit shabby.
I had something fall on the vehicle and the tape shattered into a start fracture. Anyone else had that?
Thinking of doing the wifes caddy now. She want a flower power design…. not keen myself, trying to convince her otherwise….
As far as the heating of laminate to the base material, I’ve seen comments here too, but I’ve taken this up directly with 3M and Oracal and they say it not required here in oz. Metamark and Avery don’t stipulate it either in their data sheets from what I can see, so it may be a european thing, with regards the colder ambient temps you guys get.
I don’t think Jason in Melbourne heats his laminate either, perhaps he’ll see this post, and make a comment.
Good job tho Phill
I don’t chase wraps here, too many bigger companies doing it cheaper than I feel I need to charge to make it worthwhile. When your small and you do everything, its a case of whats quicker and easier, that makes the best profit for me.
I did a job a while back that took 3 days to design and get approved, and 2 days to fit. The money I got for it, I could have earned in 3 days with my everyday work.
Talking to the reps here, a lot of smaller shops like me are thinking the same way.
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Jason has seen this post.
Phil that looks great. You will find the more panels you have to apply the more time it takes to do a wrap.
We have analysed our business and processes and have discovered partial wraps are more profitable then full wraps. This is due to the number of partials quotes won over the full wrap quotes. It also used reduced time, less risk of failures due to working on flatter panels and the client still getting a digital effect and the same impact as a full wrap.
Example we might quote a partial wrap for $2500. A competitor will quote a full wrap at $4000. If we were to compete on price for that $1500 difference we’d be doing $1500 of work for no profit. Yes I might earn my hourly wage installing and printing it etc but there is no profit for the business. Try applying front and rear bumpers and see what I mean.
If you want to get into this business promote PARTIAL WRAPS. Someone who will want a full wrap will tell you and generally they know the price tag that comes with it. We’ve won most of our business due to the finish of our work. The difference in price between a multi coloured vinyl job and a partial wrap isn’t that great if your design is clever.
We use the Avery DOL 1030 laminate its a 30 micron laminate so its a very thin laminate. Almost feels like glad wrap (cling wrap stuff you wrap your sandwichs in). I’ve also used the matching laminate for the Arlon 4600GTX which goes on cold and I don’t have an issue with.
Avery stipulate to apply it cold and don’t apply any break pressure so you don’t cause any tension in the laminate which could cause a failure.
Applying heat to this particular laminate would create a mess I’d think. I can stretch it a fair bit by hand wouldn’t want to see what introducing a bit of heat would do.
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One small tip.
See in the second pic the cut under the side mirror. Don’t just cut a line. You risk tearing the vinyl. Cut half a circle out of it. It also helps the vinyl stay flatter to the vehicle when you get up to that section.
Other then that your HIRED.
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I should have stated that too Jason, I go for partial wraps all the time. But full wraps are not something I chase. Just to clarify…
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looks like an interesting job Phil, looking forward to seeing it finished. 😀 p.s……I didn’t even have a bike going to college :roll:…….. kids!….don’t know how good they have it! 😀
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looks great phil
the jury is out here!
to do our van between design printing and laminating all in one day
then another hard stressful day to fit this was done on monday so we are doing the daily inspection waiting for it to pop
i has taken about 30m x 1340 to do the job + time so it isn’t cheap
one of the big problems i see coming outwith the material poping and the hastle is that as more people have a go the more competitive the pricing will become the way a wrapper explained it to me before was that no one can guarantee any wrap 100% but because of the high profit margin if you have to repair or replace some work it’s just a hazard of the job but with the big margins you can live with that but if the margins come down you would be in the s**twhen i letter a vehicle or sign with our every day vinyl i can sleep at night
wrapping makes me feel the way i did when i went from being a signwriter to a vinyl fitter it is the same trade but totally differenti think what has been said about partial wraps is maybe the way to go and also wallpapering large flat truck sides easy stuff!
i spoke recently with a fitter from the largest sign company in scotland they no longer do wraps the will cover your vehicle with print but they cut the vinyl at the recesses because no matter what material they have tried they eventually had problems
maybe if the manufacturers could come up with a material that when fitted you could walk away with confidence, all the effort seems to be coming from sign people trying to get a system or technique that works 100% and the manufacturers are charging us top dollar for something that doesn’t always do what it says on the tin people have been wrapping vehicles for 15 years so the companies have had plenty of time to develop
this product surely if we can send people to the moon we can get a bit of vinyl to stick to a vehicle!there i feel better for that
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Looks good mate 😀
quote Phill:Having said all that – it’s a very time consuming process. Not just applying the vinyl, but the time also spent on design, printing and laminating. I think you need to charge quite a lot to make this process into a viable business. I recently saw a program on discovery called wheeler dealers. In one episode, they paid £1000 to get a VW van completely wrapped. Personally, I don’t think that is enough to justify all the work that is required.Chris – I had to buy the vinyl 😥
Wasn’t there a discussion on here ages ago about that program and the fact it was too cheap for the wrap??
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This is the design Sally has come up with.
She drew the swirls by hand – Alison then scanned them and vectorised them so that Sally could manipulate them on the vehicle outline. These will be outlined in black and cut from chrome vinyl and fitted on top of the vinyl wrap.
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I think Phill it looks better as it is just wrapped. It’s only my opinion but swirls like that don’t really appeal to me. Maybe it’s just the drawing that’s putting me off. To say Sally is still at school though she’s picked things up well.
Sorry I don’t like criticizing other peoples work when they’ve worked so hard on it.
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quote Karl Williams:Sorry I don’t like criticizing other peoples work when they’ve worked so hard on it.
But the voices MADE him…. :lol1:
I think itll look pretty funky in silver and black, go for it.
Its going to look very different put it that way.
You may get a flood of student cars to wrap for 65 quid each. -
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Bit like the voices that keep telling me to light a F@g up. 👿 👿
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Yes, the electric voices that talk through a box pressed onto your neck, when you get your larynx removed.
Dont do it.
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Eeeerrrr thanks Steve. You made me feel so much better. 😕
Its been about a week now so I think I’m on me way. -
A week and you have almost cracked it mate, its bout 10 days I reckon then every day after that you seem to look upon them as nasty pointless smelly things that you wouldnt put in your mouth,
A little bit like french food :lol1:
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My wife says the same! 😀
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Is this going where I think its going……………….. 😕
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Quick get back to Sallys car. Phew. 😀
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Yes.
Sally’s car, I think it looks nice.
I also think it’ll look great with the silver on, I would try a darker blue instead of black on there, just to see what it looks like not too dark just a few shades darker than the wraps general colour.
Black may contrast too much, could be wrong though.
Black outlines on silver look best on white I think. -
Etch may work phill … silver may… talk her out of it lol
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Why talk her out of it?
She isn’t a sign maker, nor are her friends that will be riding in the car, she has designed it because its what she likes
She’s not advertising a business or anything, just jazzing her car up.
Id just let her get on with it if its what she wants. -
Part 2
Well we’ve just gone and spent the best part of another day working on the car. I printed more vinyl during the week and today we finished off the roof, the tailgate and the rear bumper panel. Sally cut out her "swirls" using chrome vinyl outlined in black. This was applied to one side, the rear and the bonnet which means the car now looks complete albeit one side is still unwrapped as well as the front bumper panel.
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That actually turned out quiet nice for a chicks car 😉 She must be very chuffed and now I’m sure all the boys will be looking :lol1:
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Now all you need are private plates. SALLY 1 😉
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Phill thats terrific what a clever girl you have got, she must feel very pleased with her self 😎 and I bet she appreciates yours and Alisons encouragement well done all of you.
Warren you shouldn’t have said that if Phill thinks boys will be looking he will be stripping it off as we speak 😀
Lynn
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I do like that… ace!
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That looks GRAND!
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I think the car really has had a mega-make-over Phill… well done all involved!
I have to say this is probably the best way any sign firm can "dip their toe" into wrapping a vehicle. not only does it give them great application trial and error experience, but also gives you an idea of just how much preparation is involved, how much application, heating and trimming time is involved in this line of work.
In turn, allows you to price accordingly…thank you for taking the time to post the procedure history phill, very much appreciated mate.
hope your daughter is happy with the new look car! you do know she will now be changing it every other week! :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:
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Sally has a great future in the artworld…..where the courage of your convictions is paramount……that looks brilliant 😀 😀 Well done the Fentons! 😀
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I like it!
Looks great, see I told you to let her do it. 😛 -
That’s turned out terrific!
We’re impressed! Tell Sally she’s got an armyGlad to see you all having a go – A real family project
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