For anyone who watches a lot of car (modification) shows on TV, the term vinyl wrapping should not be completely new. Although the likes of SKY and Virgin have wrapped their engineers’ vans in colourful vinyl graphics for a while now, I don’t think private people have been using this effect a lot until recently. You can sometimes see pictures of high end sports cars wrapped in matt black , chrome or carbon fibre effect vinyl and it can give a very interesting finish indeed. Recently, in October 2011, Fifth Gear has been showing off this treatment in an attempt to “pimp” a Rover Metro. For anyone that missed it, the car was done in carbon fibre and chrome, and in spite of having the work done completely professionally, they didn’t really succeed at making it worth more as a custom. But anyway, still there is a lot of interest in this technique and plenty of colours and effects are available to purchase through independent websites as well as Ebay.
We decided to give it a go – Initially we wanted to make a grey helmet matt black but with the leftover also did some side panels for the CB550. I was quite keen on the idea not only because it seems like quite an effective and quick way of changing a vehicle’s colour but also you can simply take it back off without ruining the original paint. In theory.
So we watched some YouTube videos, ordered matt black vinyl wrap off Ebay, invested in a heat gun and got to work.
Firstly, let me say it’s not as easy as the pros on YouTube make it look! You need a clean area to do the work, and a LOT of patience. Our first attempt at doing a side panel didn’t work out, we ended up heating the wrap a bit too much and tore a hole in it. We also completed the helmet, which except for a few wrinkles on one side turned out quite good actually. Then we did the side panels again. This time, and with a bit more practice, it worked out a bit better and I’m quite happy with the finished product.
Vinyl Wrapping HowTo
Tools:
- Heat Gun
- Small squeegee or we used an old expired debit card
- Pen knife
- Automotive grade vinyl wrap – this should be relatively long lasting in various weather conditions.
You start by cutting a piece of vinyl a bit bigger than the item you intend to cover. In case the item is curvy, you will need enough extra material to hold on to for pulling and stretching purposes.
Ideally you heat the whole thing a bit to make it more supple and in a swift and sure movement stretch it over your item. This is definitely a job best done by two or more people. Once you heat the vinyl it gets so soft that it’s nearly impossible to handle with one hand, so if you intend doing this by yourself you need to get some sort of rig to put the heat gun onto to keep your hands free for handling the vinyl.
Once you’ve stuck the vinyl onto the item, smooth it with your squeegee or credit card or even your fingers to get rid of trapped air and wrinkles. Any that can’t be smoothed out easily has to be removed again, heated a bit and stretched a bit over the item.
Corners and curves is where it gets tricky, a lot of heating, stretching and pulling is required. Start gentle so you don’t tear the vinyl apart and soon you’ll get a feel for how far you can go.
We found that in case it was totally impossible to get a wrinkle-free finish in a corner, generally the effect was better to cut the excess of the vinyl away and make a seam slightly overlapping the remaining pieces. This would give you a visible line, but is less obvious than having a lot of ugly bubbling material.
Vinyl wrapped side panel - finished!
