Vinyl Wrap

WilliamA

Hi all,
I've been working like a crazy person getting things tidied up on the new computer. So far it's going well. My first official act has been to promptly lock myself out of my own bank account. On the bright side, it took much less time to do this time than last. Faster processor I suppose... I'll call them tomorrow.
In the meantime, I've downloaded my new graphics program to replace Adobe Illustrator and have been getting used to it. I'm ready to rip some vinyl designs soon. I have done my homework and decided on a local printer to do the work. He satisfied all of my requirements and is close by so it all works out. I've decided to start the process with a huge graphic on the inside of the kitchen hatch. I want a large, in your face image that's not so busy I can't lay some aesthetically pleasing smaller images over the top of. I have too many images to start with, so it's been something of a problem culling the herd down to a manageable stack. Here are the finalists:
Clifden Castle...Clifden, Connemara, Ireland

Boiler...Steamship wreck, Lake Champlain, NY

Lead Paint....Spooner, Wi

Ponte Du Garde... Remoulins, France

Ponte Du Garde 2...Remoulins, France

Very Large Array...New Mexico

Carcassonne... Carcassonne, France

They each mean something dear to me but also have lots of "big" space. Feel free to vote as I'll be choosing soon and it will mostly come down to the one I grab on the way out the door to the printer...
Target size is 66"X43".
WilliamA

Verna

OK, where did “we” go past the last photo, @William? I was totally intrigued by the number of satellites, and I never did remember to look up the website. I came back home in April on US 60 from AZ, so it was probably on that route.

That would be a great wrap for the hatch!

Jumper

Clifton Castle would be my pick.

Aspen

"Lead Paint" is my vote... it would add a nice textured look to the inside of the hatch!

BBsGarage

My vote would be for the boiler steamship wreck. But I think it would be kinda cool on the outside of the hatch.

WilliamA

@Verna said:
OK, where did “we” go past the last photo, @William? I was totally intrigued by the number of satellites, and I never did remember to look up the website. I came back home in April on US 60 from AZ, so it was probably on that route.

That would be a great wrap for the hatch!

Verna,
Yup...It's on Hwy 60 about a half hour west of Socorro. As big as the VLA is, It's curiously easy to miss. You went right through the middle of it! Make sure to stop there in the way down. They have a pull-off with some sandwich boards and also (allegedly) have a visitors center, although it has weird hours. It's posted on the VLA government website.
WilliamA

Verna

I took lots of photos. As soon as my house is sold I’ll have time to go back and look st the website.

WilliamA

Thanks to all for the input. This is proving to be curiously difficult to decide. So many great photos and memories...
Clifden Castle, like most places I've visited in Ireland, is both beautiful and has a hilarious story. My partner, Alison and I spent a month driving around Ireland on our third trip there and ended up spending 10 days in a rented house outside of Clifden. It's close to the Alcock and Wilson memorial (first transatlantic flight. 1919. Promptly crashed into a bog outside Clifden where there is a memorial) and the Marconi transatlantic transmission site. It's hard to find. 2 miles down the farm road. Make sure and close the gates or the sheep will get out! We found it, but almost got stuck in our rented VW Polo.
To get to Clifden Castle, you have to go through this guys yard. Stop and ask permission. That's harder than it sounds as he will understand you perfectly but you won't have a clue what he's saying back. He either said we could go look or he was going to release Irish Wolfhounds and we'd be killed. I'm not sure which. He has a donation box on the sheep gate (more sheep) so I left 10 euros. Maybe that's why we weren't killed by Wolfhounds. It's a 2 kilometer walk through the pastures to the Castle. It poured the whole walk, stopping just long enough for me to get some photos and pet the horse. Once it started raining again, the horse retreated back into the Castle where he lives now. I didn't use to believe in Leprechaun's, but I do now.
WilliamA

OutdoorEd

Great pics. Personally, I'm partial to bicycles, but that's just me. Seriously, with the thermos and scarf or whatever it is, that one can tell any story the viewer wants it to.

WilliamA

I'm moving forward with my vinyl designs. Right now I'm working on the window wrap design and overlays for the large photos. For overlays, I'm using scans of my passport visa stamps. The window wraps will be weird but fun. I am also doing a redesign of my trailer logo
("Gray's Mobile Alien Abduction Counseling Service"
"They came to you and we will too!") to go under the windows on both sides. My how simple can get complicated...
More to come...
BTW...so far, I am leaning toward the VLA photo as it segue's nicely into my logo. In the words of Hunter S Thompson: "It can't get weird enough for me".
WilliamA

WilliamA

Things are progressing in fits and starts around here. I've been in the middle of a frenzy of sorts trying to go in many different directions at once. I suppose life is often like that, but it seems that there's room in all of this for a bit of reflection on what's important and the stuff I'm doing just because it needs doing. I got 2 of the 3 utility trailers wired with lights and am off this morning to do the last one. I'll do that one on-site as it needs tires and I refuse to tow it. Should take a couple of hours if things go well. Over the weekend, my son's Cub Scout troupe (troup?, Troop?, too many languages...) was in charge of cleaning up the beer tent and ball diamond for our small community in celebration of "PickleFest" so we spent the weekend mostly smelling of beer and stale funnel cakes. Yech...
I am still working at penning up some more electric brake info for that post, but have my wheel spacers coming this week and plan to pull both hubs and do a clean/re-pack of the bearings while I'm in there. I have the wheel seals, new tub of grease, cleaner and other bits so it's a matter of getting time to do the work. While I'm at it, I want to get more better photos of the bits inside so I'll post a long thread covering all of that when my spacers come in. Oh yeah, I also have to rewire/repair the wiring for my side marker lights that have been burned up by the tires rubbing on them.
In any case, I snuck in a couple of hours yesterday afternoon to work on the graphics for the trailer. I have to say that sometimes, it's just a matter of sorting and working on sizes and then things just start to come to a logical progression. I've selected the photos for the side and front windows and will be blasting off this afternoon to the printer to see if we can come to some arrangement on price and material. I know they have vinyl in the "peek-a-boo" material that can go over windows, but don't know the specs for how well it stretches over odd shapes. As many know, there are lots of different grades of vinyl and some do well over complex shapes and others don't. Assuming the vinyl I want to use is available, I'll drop off the files and look forward to getting them back in a few days. I've chosen these two images for the windows:
For the side windows, I ended up with this one. I've been wanting to use it since the first time I saw it upon downloading and finally have a good spot for it. Since I don't seem to be alone in liking the photo (thanks BB!) and it has a bit of mystery imbedded, I think it will be a good choice for both side windows. The square tilt-outs first. I have another image of the same thing that is taken from further back that shows the round door into the boiler and might put that one over the round door windows but we'll see how this goes first. I'm planning to remove the windows and do the wrap in the house. I want to wrap the images over the edges of the windows and also need to do a proper job of thoroughly cleaning them first and the easiest way to do that is take them off.

Here's another image that's dear to me and I've wanted to print in large format for a long time. It also, by coincidence, is nearly perfect height/width for the front window. For those interested, it's a match to the Clifden Castle photo. This is the Connemara pony that lives within...

This one might take some additional trimming to get right but I plan to have what's shown printed and then cull what doesn't fit off the top of the image. I'm excited to finally get the vinyl to the metal (sic) on this project. Next: inside of the kitchen hatch. First things first.
I plan to head up to Spooner, Wi this week and see my ace bodyman, Zeppy to collude over whether it would be cheaper/better to wrap the trailer or paint it. I want the main color to be the same red as my Jeep so it'll be a big job. Either way, I'm hoping that Zeppy will be the guy who either paints it or helps me apply the billboard-sized pieces of vinyl. I had thought about designing vinyl with imbedded graphics but have tossed that idea in lieu of doing the base color in vinyl and then doing transparent vinyl overlays. It would be tons easier to get things straight. In addition, if I don't like the overlays, I can remove them...
I'll keep you posted...
Williama

2jgcampers

I like the boiler room/horse combo-sort of a tip of the hat to steampunk while also resembling stables!

WilliamA

Hey all,
It's been crazy busy here over the past 24 hours. I found an old Rupp Go Kart rolling chassis for my son Will and we've been giving it a good going over. We picked up an engine at Harbor Freight today and have everything working but the throttle hookup and couldn't find a local source for a clutch. I'll order one off the net.
Anyway, back to trailer stuff. I picked up one of the vinyl pieces yesterday and got it installed. The rest will be coming in the next few days or so. Have a look:

It's been awhile since I did any wrapping and had forgotten how finicky it is. But as I've often said: "If you want to know how the wall looks painted, paint the wall."
I really like how it looks except now it drowns out the Boondock graphic, which will have to go. More to come as the pieces dribble in...
WilliamA

WilliamA

@2jgcampers said:
I like the boiler room/horse combo-sort of a tip of the hat to steampunk while also resembling stables!

No matter how hard I have tried in the past, my projects have all eventually ended in Steampunk/post Apocalypse films ala Mad Max. It's how I roll...what's the sense in fighting it? Lol!
WilliamA

TomD

I like Steampunk😎

Fourman110

Looks great! Can you see through it?

WilliamA

@Fourman110 said:
Looks great! Can you see through it?

Actually, they let in a ton of light but are pretty translucent. I'm working on finding a suitable perforated vinyl but so far, no luck finding something perforated that's both printable and flexible enough to go around the tight curves of the window. It seems that the industry doesn't make the stuff because windows are mostly flat with no complex curves. It takes some work to get this stuff on over the double-step on the windows as it is and working that hard would stretch the perforations to weird shapes. We're talking about printing a test on clear printable vinyl and knocking the print density down to 50% or so. So doing that it's possible, but will take some work in my graphic program to tune the saturation so it's a good visible image but can still be semi-transparent from the inside. I personally don't care because I always have the windows open during the day and will enjoy the privacy at night. Also, they look cool when lit from the inside. Gotta run and eat something, then get to work cleaning up the debris field from working on the go-kart...
WilliamA

Oh yeah...Got a call today that two more of my vinyl pieces are done. That'll have to wait while I clear some of the local home-stuff from the schedule.

BBsGarage

Didnt realize you needed a hammer to install vinyl wrap.

WilliamA

@BBsGarage said:
Didnt realize you needed a hammer to install vinyl wrap.

That's not a hammer, that's a 24 oz, straight claw "Fixall". It's just for trim work. I have a bigger one for general maintenance.
WilliamA

WilliamA

We've been "distracted" up here for a few days now. Between the beehive maintenance, OPP's (other people's problems), household maintenance and general life-stuff, it's been hard to stay on task. Here's a photo of my best distraction:

We've been working on this:

Since we brought it home as a wreck/roller we have both been knee-deep in getting it going. I'm happy to say that it's a runner and driver and now we are just waiting on the parts for a jack-shaft install to slow it down a bit. His first drive in the yard scared the p##p out of him so now he's onboard for slowing it down. Parts are enroute from Shrevesport, La and should be here on Thursday or so.

So all of the new flooring is in (in the house...Living room and office) and the furniture is moved where the she-female wants it and I can get back to my trailer for a bit. I'll be picking up the vinyl graphics today for the other two windows and am excited to get back to that. I was able to spend a couple of hours the other day finishing the peel-off of the stock vinyl. The kangaroo is gone and so is the black door-surround (tent hookup rubber umbilical thingy?) As with my LG, when I peeled off the rubber door surround, it was full of water between the door edge and the rubber. Hmmmm.... Anyway, I peeled it all off, dried out the swamp underneath and used my "magic elixer" to remove the remaining glue lines from the factory vinyl. I still haven't solved the translucence problem but I'll deal with that as my relationship with the vinyl guys in Eau Claire (Wi) evolves. I'm still thinking the way to go on the windows is to print my images on clear vinyl with a 50% opacity of the image but we need to do some tests. I talked to them and they are looking into it as well. So today I'll order the giant print to go on the inside of the kitchen hatch and pick up the window prints. Should have them installed by the weekend. The giant hatch print will be a good test to see how hard it will be to wrestle the side and top vinyl in place. The hatch print is going to be printed on a different grade 3M vinyl that has next to no stretch. It's specifically made for large flat surfaces that don't have any complex angles. It's supposed to be more resistant to image stretching but has no tolerance for tight corners like the stuff I'm using on the windows. If I like it, I'll order the trailer side wrap pieces and get to work wrapping the entire sidewalls. I can't wait for that (said nobody, ever...) I figure it will take 3 of us to get the large pieces on. If you watch the videos of the pro's wrapping large areas, it looks easy. Hah. The reality is closer to reruns of the 3 Stooges putting a bull in the back seat of a taxi.
For the side wrap I plan to remove the fenders and any lights not nailed down. I'll pull the window off but leave the frame. I plan to remove the doors completely including the frames. After watching the water dribble out from under the rubber attaching strips, I want to remove the door frames and inspect for damage anyway. While the fenders are off, I plan to do them in black bedliner paint (spraybombs) to match my jeep. The raw aluminum looks good as long as you want to spend the rest of your life keeping it clean and water spots off. I don't so I'm making them black and bulletproof with bedliner. That stuff will stick to a rainy day, is pretty chip-resistant and is easy to touch up. I like either Duplicolor or Herculiner bedliner spray. I've used both and find the only difference is the Duplicolor bedliner is a bit smoother with less roughness when dry. It's harder to go back and touch up though, so I'll use the Herculiner.

That about covers it for now. I'll post a few photos when I get the work done. In the meantime, on to updating a few other threads that I've been neglecting.
WilliamA

TomD

Yep! Make sure to winterize your bees. Priority’s.

WilliamA

Like lemons to lemonade...
Well, it's been something of a slog of late with too many things going on at once. I finally got a number of big projects off the list and am happy to be able to get back to my trailer re-inventing. The vinyl graphics have been proving to test my patience up to the point of walking away for a bit to cool off. I really liked the side window graphic images but my installation just isn't up to the technology of doing the job right. It's deceptively difficult to do. I installed the side window graphics with great duress and ended up pulling them both off. In addition to my sketchy craftsmanship, they were just too dark and obscure for me. I don't mind obscure, but I DO want light to enter. They were the wrong image for that, so I took them off.
On the bright side, after stewing for a few days I elected to put the large graphic on the front window and am happy to say that my vinyl wrapping is no better, but the image is nearly perfect for what I wanted to do. I've got some wrinkles and a few bubbles that I'm still working out but the effect is exactly what I've been after. Once I've sorted some different graphics for the side windows and got it worked out, I'll have them printed and then have someone who knows what they are doing install them. Live and learn. Here's my horse trailer:

I absolutely love it and am really pleased with most of the look, minus my dodgy installation. So be it.
Most importantly, and also much to my absolute delight, the front one is very much less opaque and, better yet, is a mirror image of the outside but one that actually works better looking out than looking in! It's both nice and also hilarious. Just exactly the look I wanted but with the bonus of being very pleasing from the inside.

As I've said before many times: "If you want to know what the wall looks like painted, paint the wall".
I burned through about a hundred bucks and will need to have a re-do but it's worth it. Had I had the originals professionally installed, I'd be out for the printing and the installation.
So far, so good.
Now to find a good side-window image that has the same nuance as the front one.
I'll keep you posted...
WilliamA

2jgcampers

Well worth the wait!

WilliamA

I haven't forgotten about this project either. My boat is small and my sea of tasks is large...

I got some time yesterday to do a bit of putzing and I decided to deal with the chrome cowbells and marker lights. I had some bits of vinyl lying around from another project so I got out the hair dryer and went to work. It's not the color I would have chosen from scratch, but it gets rid of the obscene chrome. I don't like chrome.


Dang, that stuff is a handful to work with......
I also ordered a whole bunch of Vivid automotive vinyl in Ferrari Red Matt. That project may have to wait for a bit as it will take a dedicated de-construction of the trailer. We'll see when I get to it. I wanted to get the vinyl while it was $2 bucks off a linear yard.

WilliamA

rfuss928

I'm still trying to figure out where the two pair of legs on the right fit in????

WilliamA

It's a sad thing to admit but I'm pretty much, on top of everything else, a slave to fashion....

WilliamA