ArcTec34

I was skeptical reading the title but man. That looks really, really, really good. I might even attempt to do the same on my car. Scale of 1-10 what is the difficulty? Just take your time and work the sections, or is it more than that?

thanks!

out of all my projects (I get bored and build stuff.. my exhaust, tail lights, and a bunch of stuff around the house) this was the most frustrating. more fustrating than building an automatic watch movement haha. so.. high on that difficulty scale. A lot of it is patience, but the bumpers are REALLY tricky and you have to really know what you're doing for them, lots of stretching and heating and more stretching and heating (but you can't stretch matte vinyl very much!). By the end of the project, it was much easier. you also need one other person to help you for many of the pieces.. 2 people, even better.

Any trick to doing the door handles?

did them in separate pieces.. one piece for the actual handle, and then one for the surrounding piece, i was able to stretch the vinyl out a bit so it covered the indentation under the handle. this piece was the same piece of vinyl as the door, but I did cut around the seam with a razor, using a little heat, and pushed the vinyl in the gap between the pieces

Does the Di-Noc behave similarly to this? I am considering vinyl for some accents. (inside hood scoop, grill opening, and interior pieces)

If you look above a few posts, I think someone else links to a similar "carbon fiber" patterned vinyl that is made for more rugged/outdoor applications. the di-noc scratches very easily. I have di-noc on my interior woodgrain trim though, and that barely gets touches so its holding up fine there

I threw some pics of yours on nasioc for some people to look over, hope you're cool with it. LMK otherwise and I'll remove them.

Fine with me!

So winter is finally over, vinyl has held up pretty well. If I look close enough there are a few tiny tiny chips from rocks/highway driving on the front and some wear like that but not much else. I will probably swap out a few of the doors and re-vinyl them because of a defect in the vinyl from months ago, but that's about it.

the non air release vinyl is used for large graphics on the sides of vehicles, walls, windows, etc etc etc... I think they're really meant for flat surfaces though...

please post here how it goes, then.

exact model # of the vinyl?

including mess ups, I used about 15 yards. I didn't put anything under it and I don't recommend it if you're using a decent vinyl- it will make it impossible to do the really curvy parts.

also- as I said before, buy a smaller sample of the non-air release kind and try it out, because I think you'll hate your life for a a while/maybe not be able to finish the car with it if you have no experience with vinyl. most of that type of vinyl is not meant to wrap cars.

heres a post with some PM's and answers, I've been getting a lot recently:

i

Hey, I just had a few quick questions about your vinyl wrap project and figured it'd be better to send you a PM than to post in the thread.

 

How would you recommend someone who has never, ever wrapped anything with vinyl before practice on working with vinyl? Do you know of any good websites/PDFs that kind of outline the whole process (as in... squeegee-ing, when to use the heatgun, etc.)? Can you recommend a place to buy the vinyl from (I vaguely remember you saying something about 'your' distributor in the thread... do they have a website I can buy vinyl from)? And finally, the thing that makes me curious about this whole matte black vinyl wrap project the most is how did you take care of the stuff? Is it as easy as say, spritzing down the vinyl with a bit of water and wiping away the dust/dirt or did you have to use actual soap like a normal car wash? How badly does it show oil and fingerprints?

You should definitely buy a piece and work with it. I don't know of any good walkthroughs, and I'm sure either this thread or another by some BMW guy is as good as it gets, not to mention I'm here to ask questions to.

Squeegee- use a felt-tipped one, it won't leave any scratched

heat gun- for MATTE vinyl expecially, DO NOT use too much heat. a hair dryer is plenty! use it on high heat settings

taking care of it- right now, not really.. its been covered with snow/salt for a month, it all just washes off. BUT do not use: automatic touch carwashes (the ones with the swinging brushes etc), wax, anything that'd scratch the vinyl. Normal hand wash with a sponge and dry with towels is perfect, or a touchless car wash. normal soap is fine.

yes, matte vinyl shows finger prints/oil/smudges easier than regular paint, as you'd expect. washes off just the same, though. In the summer i was anal about finger prints and would always keep a towel and some isopropyl alcohol handy to remove them

Thanks for the info Arctec... So you used Air release Oracal Vinyl? You're damn lucky on the price if you did... that ish is expensive!... I found I can get a single roll of the none air releasestuff for $500ish... ... I think what I'm going to do is anywhere there's going to be a seam I'll keep the backing on so I can slide something underneath and cut it to get a seam free type finish...

f you want to know what vinyl is like to work with, buy a sample of the vinyl first to try it out. I used some boring oracal vinyl which doesn't have the quality of the 3m and its really tough to work with.

I got mine through a NJ distributor that my friend worked at, unfortunately they don't work there anymore though. see if you can just order the vinyl through a shop and be nice and maybe they'll help you out on that.

I will find pics of my seams. but in short- I cut clean edges, and then overlapped them by half an inch. I only needed seams on the A and C pillars, and on the hood scoop inlet.

I never cut on the car, and brought a flexible plastic "cutting board" that I could slide under and cut on

There are so many freak'n Vinyl's out there... Jeesh! I've found the vinyl I want to use but it's not the air release kind of vinyl... and i've heard that can be a real PITA when applying to large area's (such as the doors)... i dont see a problem with the hood/trunk/roof/quarter panels... those are pretty straight forward... the bumpers are going to suck though... oh well... also i'll have enough extra to do a second car if i don't screw up a lot (which I suspect I will because it isn't the air release kind).

I think i'm going to order the vinyl in 2-3 weeks... then there's a 10day lead time... so next month i'll get it and start the vinyl process... just in time for my birthday (sorta). happy b-day to meeeee

i REALLY would stress buying a sample first and trying it out.. the non air release vinyl is a completely different animal and I can't even imagine how much harder it'd be

IMHO, I think you need to get a smidge lowered, some tints, and clear those headlights. No tinting of tail lights or blacking out of headlights needed.

 

How's it holding up so far?

its holding up really well! better than I thought it would...

other than getting hit with a blown out tire which scratched it and actually went through it in some places (the vinyl definitely saved the paint, though) its held up really well- weeks of salt without wash, an inch of ice on it last week, snow, etc, no problems!

thanks for the comments, everyone =]

tints..yes..its going to happen. As for the taillight tint- I doubt I will do that though. But when I was retrofitting them with LEDs, I actually painted the housing behing the red lens black, so if you were to see the car in person with the lights off it is darker than normal:

http://berzindesign.com/vinyl/t1.jpg

and, here is a bigger size picture of the first one for your desktop!

http://berzindesign.com/vinyl/lgt.jpg

http://berzindesign.com/vinyl/a.jpg

http://berzindesign.com/vinyl/b.jpg

http://berzindesign.com/vinyl/c.jpg

here's green for ya..someone puked all over this M5..

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/x-m-forum/76521-green-matt-finish-m5.html

ahhhh...lucky guy..hahaha

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coopernaitove/4969515901/in/set-72157624781482963/

Awww, the pics aren't showing up anymore

my website server is down.... I;ll try to figure out what is wrong.

For now: soo.. I'm looking into getting a new car in about a year from right now... a Corvette C6 Z06. While poking around online, I found a matte red one..

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-z06-discussion/2572614-matte-red-zo6-better-quality-pics.html