vehicle graphics: forth tyres

[Steve Thurlow]

Nice job Martin,
bet it was a sod to go over the black plastic trim!
The logo with the bridge looks like fun to put together, was it a 3 colour vinyl job?
Nice & clean looking van.

cheers,
Steve

[Robert Lambie]

Looks very smart martin.. Thanks for sharing mate 😉
I am sure 100% all your work is worthy of showing here mate. This one is very clean and tidy. 😉
The moulding is always something that annoys me fitting over. 😕
I do leave the vinyl covering it, but always mention to the customer that i have slit it next to the moulding were it almost touches the van. This way if it crawls back, shrinks, or pulls out. Then it will only become grubby on the moulding.
The application to the vehicle will always stay intact.
😉 😀

[Alan]

Nice looking job Martin and on a Merc at that, sure beats a rusty old tranny. I think it’s well worth a viewing.

I’m going to mention the plastic trim too; what’s your method for getting it to stick tight to the plastic! Do you flame it!

Alan

[Robert Lambie]

yep.. i normaly slit it then bake it! alan. then point it out to the customer so he doesnt come back to me “IF” it peals! 😕 😉 😀

[Alan]

I was thinking more about the treatment of the plastic trim prior to application.
As you know a lot of moulded plastics have a very poor surface for vinyl to adhere to and no amount of cleaning seems to improve it. Often the only answer is to hit it momentarily with a naked flame i.e. blowlamp, (Not for the faint of heart) to burn off any release agent.

Alan

[eddie cotter]

nice job martin 😉 , what kind of vinyl did you use, is it calanderd or cast, eddie

[Martin Pearson]

Thanks for commenting guys, Steve it is all vinyl, we don’t do digital printing in-house so where ever we can we use built up or inlayed vinyl.
Alan we don’t really have any special way of cleaning the plastic trim, we use isopropyl alcohol for cleaning as we haven’t found anything better and I have a wire brush with very soft brass bristles which seems to work quite well. We fit the vinyl the same as Robert, cut it back around the trim so if it does start to come off only the bit on the trim comes off and whats on the paintwork stays in place and then we heat it in as much as we dare which really means we probably melt it onto the trim!!!!
We always tell the customer before we start the job that it may not stay on and when they collect the van we remind them again.
Eddie it’s all oracal 751 there are no really bad curves so there is no need to use a wrap vinyl, 751 is really ideal for this sort of job.

[Mike Brown]

Hi Martin – glad to see you posting more of your stuff again!

The van graphics above have great impact and dark blue on white is a classic combination – always looks so smart 😎

would like to see more from you – more often 😉

more soon

mikethesign