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vehicle wrapping: orkeney islands
since buying our grenadier about 10 months ago, this job has to be the largest start to finish wrap we have done yet. to be honest it went really well, and both andrew and i think we have learned allot from it as far as printing etc is concernerned.
the job is a refiurbished 44 foot long trailer/truck, and we picked the order up from McRod, a UKSG member on the boards that is located about 4 miles from us. rod deals with work on this scale allot, they do bodywork, resprays, the works basically, they even do all the signwork and have been doing it for many many years now. having done some smaller stuff in the past for him i wqs delighted he turned to us to produce this truck wrap for him. his customer provided all the artwork, what we had to do was print, laminate & apply the graphics. on this sorta scale with a sorta newish machine you gulp…. how will it go, etc? all pops into your head. we have as you may know done tons of trucks on this scale but the whole printing, matching, tiling, laminating, finishing then getting to the applying bit is allot to take on amongst an already busy workload. all that said, i have to say it went damn well considering… we had some niggles & hold ups along the way but everything and anything that happend has taught us so much in so little time, not forgetting giving us so much confidence in doing a “start from scratch” job like this again.the whole thing is dgotal print and lam… no vinyl text…
(click on images to enlarge)
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30 Replies
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That is realy Smart:)
how long did it take to apply to the unit? and what sort of “niggly” problems did you face Rob (?)
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That looks splendid 😀
Lynn
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Coo thats a big one Rob !!
bet the r sole twitched a bit when you took it on, mine would have!
Peter -
quote :r solewill reply in a second, thats the funniest…. (not that i condone it :wink:) word filter dodge i have seen yet :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:
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real nice work rob 😛
i will keep my eyes open for that one….seen it’s on it’s travels from the north!! 😀
Nik
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Well done mate, what material did you use?
what was your overlap width?
cheers
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What was it that you did again Robert? I lost all focus once I clicked on the picture of Halle Berry. 😮 :wow:
-MarekBTW, looks great!
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Excellent job Rob…
Marek
I double clicked Halle after your note and got “Truckwrap2” need to get rid of my filters 😀 -
Rob, thought the grenadier was print and cut? whats the other machine in the pics?
Peter -
No need to answer, just enlarged,
Laminator! me is a deek ed 😀
Peter -
mort, the problems were more my machine to begin with!
grenadier that is… to be fair, the machine never misses a beat. but on wednesday after printing “one” side. we had a burst cartridge. no hassle all done and dusted. but… we got air in pipes then this and that… all small niggles but felt like a life time when your chocka-block and when these things happen in amongst big prints it becomes a headache.
anyway…… when we installed, i started off as normal… got to panel 3 or 4 and its registration/alignment marks were out, or we aligned to wrong line. no big deal and only 1/4 inch or so… on we went (by the way we never noticed this) by the time we got half way over a 44 foot truck, the panels started running down hill….. 😮 i noticed by panel 5-6 and mentioned to rod, being the perfect customer said, do what you can mate… im sure it will be fine. well… we did best we could and thankfully the whole thing looked spot on when complete. but it slowed us down so much i could have cryed. 🙁
we regularly do 33 foot trailers (we dont print) and i can do a complete truck in about 2.5-3 hours… i thought ill do this in 3-4 hours as the back doors had a bit of cutting… NOP… the one thing i feel so confident in went wrong the most… “fitting” all done and said, it was a first class bit of “back to school” for andrew & i in a long time… 😉
…cheers rod 😉
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double post…
posted one above too…thanks a million for replies folk…
this is the back… bit of a pain to fit.. cutting etc took time but still managed to make skin like 😉
(click image to enlarge)
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Marek, yeh… the halle berry picture is always a good topic for customers. part of reason why we have it.. its in our print room as a sample next to spidy, but you wouldnt beleive the amount of folk walk in comment on it, even more so when they relaies its a “banner” 😀
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Great bit of work rob,
How did you manage the doors without removing all the fittings?
And the other question that everyone is dying to ask, but are to polite to ask, what’s a job like that cost? ( to the nearest pound would be OK)
Peter -
dsi, hi shane… sorry mssed your post. the vinyl is metamark md5 digital vinyl and laminate. perfect for this sorta flat panel work but not my fav choice in vehicle vinyl. having said that… many many suppliers in the uk now use rebranded md5 under their own brand of digital vinyl.
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the back doors are not a problem at all peter. i dont mean they are not hard but i do so many of them in contract work they become second nature. having said that, barn (back) doors like this with hinges and bars etc can take just as long as the sides on in some cases. always worth taking into account? 😕
costs/ well as this is a trade price etc ide rather not disclose mate.. sorry.
feel free to pm me though. -
Rob, wouldn’t it be quicker to whip the fitting off the doors?
Still cant see how you can fit without cutting the bits around the locking bar. I am being a bit pedantic I know, but from my experience, its quicker, and looks better too, if you take off the fittings rather than to trim round them.
Peter -
Blimey, nice work! That thing looks huge!! 😮
You probably had your mind on more important matters, but did you get any pictures during the fitting? Just curiosity more than anything, I couldn’t imagine covering a vehicle that size in that amount of print 🙄 Is it like when ppl do these bus wraps? I’ve seen a few of them dotted about and they look superb!
Cheers, Dewi
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Rob
just cleaning before you applied must have taken ages?
nice job
dave -
Excellent work, … we are getting more and more into digital and the learning curve is a steep one, just picked up a contract for Warner Leisure for 6 wraps, from bmw 325 estates to transit connects, client is very good can have each vehicle for a week so plenty of time i hate being rushed on jobs like these
Adrian
(ps i would be interested in you pm’ing the trade cost as we are getting asked for trade work and i dont know if it worth doing… thanx.)
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Excellent work Rob. 😀
Imagine tackling that one with your old PC60 😕 -
Looks outstanding even close up in the flesh.
There is simply no comparison the the prints that came off the old Arizona machines.
I forgot to mention last night when i left that there were another 2 in the main part of the workshop. I assume you managed to get all 3 trailers done?.
j/k 😉
Nice work m8. I think`ll try talking them into a full respray on the GRP panels next time, especially on the older fridges. Will make it easier all round.
Rod
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Great to see you’re getting te Grenadier working at full throttle
That wrap must have been a mountain (or is it a hill on there?) to get over
Glad you got the problems sorted with the Grenadier
John
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very nice Rob, I just don’t know where you’ld even start
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looks blinding mate ,very well done love the prints !
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was thinkung of buying the smaller cadet the 54inch one do you think it could produce the same quality of print? i know it would take three times as long to print but apart from that and that the cadet is only a 4 colour where the grenadier is a 6 colour would it be possible?
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p.s. The real clouds looks crap compared to the printed ones 😉
Rod
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Great work, the Grenadier certainly does the job!! The other prints look good … fab all round!!
😀
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thanks for the comments everyone…
peter
Yes your right mate, removing all the fittings would be easier and does look better.
But there are more things can go wrong doing it this way and also takes much longer.
We have done so many and I actually did this right at the beginning but removing them takes for ever unless you have some sort of air assisted tool.
Doing this you have to be careful as it can damage the threads on the fixings and can also lead to the door not aligning back up properly. Even when you get them off… especially on used vehicles the panels are really grubby around the hinges once removed so doesn’t do the application much good other than hide the small white space around the hinges once trimmed. To be honest I can fit the vinyl’s so you cant see the white space but once I have applied the vinyl I actually cut away from the hinge about 3-5mm. the reason for this is every hinge latch etc acts like a sill for water to sit on and run around. The water carries the dirt and can only get caught on any little flaps of vinyl squeegeed up tight to the hinges. Over time the water and dirt will dog-ear these areas and then along come the driver with a pressure washer to start blasting these bits causing the vinyl to start coming away. So now I basically cut it back and heat around hinges to get a nice finish.
That whole panel is applied as on with the exception on bar. Even the latches at the bottom are placed over, not slit and joined. The join for the bar although slit disappears behind the bar. The next piece on opposite side of bar is placed in and joins back up behind the bar so isn’t visible at all… that’s unless you go up and peak round the bar to see it.Dewi,
Took 3 of us mate… myself and Andrew applied the panels while a third guy colin, cleaned the sections just ahead of us. If and when we hit a snag we just called on him to help, then carried on. The panels are about 50-52 inches wide x 103 inches deep.
Due to some alignment niggles we had I ended up just whipping off the vinyl in one go and applying as one, dry of course.
Hammy, your right mate cleaning is tough going… but even if it was spotless, we would still have to give it a once over with meths. Trucks this size gather dust quickly, not visable till you apply the vinyl…Adrian, your right, cant be rushed mate, specially when finding your feet. I was lucky here as rod gave us plenty time to get the job ready and was sympathetic to the whole process as he knows exactly whats involved behind wraps of this size. Like I said we learned allot here and even the problems that came about have helped us to no end.
I think there was about 23no. – 52inch by 103 inch panels. So now other vehicle wraps is nothing in comparison to having to print. I think that BMW one you have picked up will be more than enough to give you experience.. god, by the time you do those you will be wrapping with your feet. :lol1:Phil, your right… I think aftr that one on our pc60 ide have to lead it out the back of workshop with a blindfold on and shoot it behind the ear. :lol1:
Rod, I guess you haven’t been back up. We wrapped all 3 mate! We even wrapped that big jeep you have sitting out the front, that’s was to be included yeh? 😉
p4tdesigns
the cadet would do the same job mate, not a problem.
Your right about it taking far longer but other than speed there isn’t much difference I don’t think.
The deal with most agents now is buy the small cadet & you can upgrade to wide one within first year at only the difference in cost. This is a good deal I think… lets you find your feet till your ready. Even then if speed is the issue, they allow the same to the grenadier. I recon by then, we may see these machines drop in price. Most do and ide think over the next year, we will see new machines coming onto market forcing prices down. I could be wrong of course…dewi
picture below off how we worked our way along…
(click image to enlarge)
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Quality job once again mate
iain
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