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Vinyl Wrap Finished

Zazoos

Well Known Member
Happy New Year RV Friends,

We finished our RV6 Dec. 2019 and have enjoyed flying it to so much that it was hard to stop and apply some color.

We really wanted to vinyl wrap and purchased numerous 3M 1080 and 2080 colors and finishes and I posted on here about how easy they are to scratch, especially the gloss black. The other issue was availability. Very limited color selection in the 2080 series. So, I put it on the back burner for a year.

Eventually, I ordered several different brands of vinyl in colors the vendor had lots of stock. After more testing I went with VVivid brand. The colors and finishes I choose are not nearly easy to scratch and they heal well with heat.

wcalvert has a very good write up on applying vinyl in this thread that I followed: https://vansairforce.net/community/showthread.php?t=187568&highlight=vinyl+seams+aligned+panel&page=2

The wheel pants, spinner, and snorkel are painted white but everything else is wrapped. The blue checker pattern on the spinner is vinyl and seems to be holding up well. I did manage to wrap the wheel pants and spinner, but the vinyl was stretched more than I felt comfortable with.

The most difficult section was probably the tail fairing. Just so many intersecting colors and making sure the lines align.

Is it perfect? No, it has seams and a few of the compound curve areas could probably be better if done by someone with more experience. But if you want a good, do it yourself project and don't want to mess with paint then it is a good solution. Plus, the vinyl is comparatively cheap. I ordered a bit much but didn't want to have to stop and wait on shipping from Canada. I ordered 130 feet of white with about 10 feet left over 70 feet of blue with about 15 feet left over, and 50 feet of grey with about 15 feet left over.

There is a surprising amount of waste and trash to be dealt with. I bet we took two 13 gallons trash bags to the dumpster every day. Post heating was the most boring and probably most important part. With two heat guns it took us about 40 minutes to post heat the top of the wing. Be sure and get a roller to help press the vinyl into the rivets. "RollePro"

The plane weighs exactly 20lbs more after wrapping.


v1.jpg


v2.jpg


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Wanted to do something fun with the wing walks. Pilot side is Tom Petty, Learning to Fly

v5.jpg

CoPilot is Aerosmith, Walk this Way, seemed appropriate for the passenger side.

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My wife loves this one.

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We travel in our fifth wheel a bunch and my wife made some new mud flaps. We have a had few RV owners say high during our travels.
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We made this keep the vinyl upright which seems to be the best way to store it.

Blue Skies
 
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One other tip:
Cut tape, we used about 6 rolls of cut tape. Be careful, 3M has Finish Line cut tape and Design Line cut tape. Finish Line is much stronger but not great for tight radius, Design Line is excellent at sharp corners but can snap when you first try to get it to start cutting. We always left extra Design Line protruding on each end for when one end snaps we have another chance.
 
Holy Schnikes! That looks great! I’m just about ready to paint. You’ve got me thinking of switching to vinyl.

I’ve stripped the paint off our -6. Would you recommend priming in white before applying vinyl in our situation?
 
Trent, super nice job there! Happy to see others dive into the world of wrap, and glad to see my write-up has helped others. :D

Cheers!
 
Nice job. Looks great. And, for anyone concerned about durability, we applied vinyl(Oracal 751) stripes over white base in 2003 and they still look good. Changed one of the stripes in 2017 due to boredom . It came off with relative ease with a heat gun. The paint underneath was a slightly different shade compared to the exposed paint but when the new stripe (different configuration)was applied, you had to look very closely to notice any difference. The plane is hangared. A slight learning curve is involved but overall a very doable project.
 
Holy Schnikes! That looks great! I’m just about ready to paint. You’ve got me thinking of switching to vinyl.

I’ve stripped the paint off our -6. Would you recommend priming in white before applying vinyl in our situation?

I followed wcalvert lead and didn't even scotch brite the skin. Cleaned with acetone and then 70% alcohol. I probably wouldn't prime, just wouldn't want the extra weight.
 
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