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Vinyl templates?

Carl Froehlich

Well Known Member
I'd appreciate advice from anyone using vinyl templates (not wrap) to aid in external painting. On the first two planes I did all the layout by hand using fine line tape. It works, but is time consuming and easy to mess up as the design gets more complicated.

The local PPG supplier gave me a name of a guy that makes such templates but before diving in I wanted to check with the VAF brain trust.

Carl
 
You could buy a wide carriage CNC vinyl cutter with software for ~0.3 AMU and resell it here when you're finished. :D
 
I did my graphics from vinyl paint masks custom cut by Aerographics in Colorado. They also did the masks for the N numbers for me.
oDs.jpg
 
Very happy with the results, the mask vinyl sticks very well and makes crisp lines and removes cleanly. I honestly thought it would remove some of the underlying paint because it adhered to the basecoat so well but the mask removed cleanly with no loss of basecoat.

The mask applies like regular vinyl with the same techniques but peels off after you spray.

My masks were custom sized and curves and quite large so were not cheap. I think it was around $300 for all of the masks and N numbers. Went back and forth with Aerographics many times getting them the way I wanted and it was very a smooth and quick process. The silver stripe was not a mask, that was done by hand.

Chris - happy with the results? Any lessons learned?

Carl
 
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You could buy a wide carriage CNC vinyl cutter with software for ~0.3 AMU and resell it here when you're finished. :D

Just be cautious, as they make a vynal with a low tack adhesive and that should remove ok. The regular vynal will likely pull off your base coat after 24 hours if you don't use a lot of heat.

I almost used aeorgraphics, but ended up hiring a local airbrush guy to lay out my main curve with fine line.

Larry
 
+1 for Aerographics

I also used Aerographics to cut my paint masks. See HERE for a couple of posts with photos of them in use when I painted my plane.
A couple of things: the masks don't really do well on steep compound curves. My set of masks included some for the striping on the wheel pants that I was unable to use - I had to hand tape those. Also, the masks can be pretty expensive - mine were over $1,700. The price is driven mostly by the amount of mask material needed.

Here is my end result:

7ZeoiiUctvB0HVrJ7gTXnh-7cncqL8j38-VCWR3r1BknkFcy816_pkkEq3Ld846eQWyT131L_GhGiCnHsakvJ2zxPN-z38PRmwVPPKtwBb5n5-M7p8u_xSmaIxxmldLh-hSc0P4F8lKaDdlyd2GaQM6LqpVJ4ANF9xySnQEB9dxg5lFS1lh-HSFo3A5LN7eHdmUYrvAZ2rP4NApX1N09UrhfHPg2L7pD9bG2XFRgmMgCu9JNNLtAxcxZJFlFFwL5pdAO2YDaieqrJhXuLk8EhyiOpcyBlRQqiMN_4UvTqerkR7QjBi31-kQWrq64_wMTsbJIRhWZtNNes_KnqkHnLZHhD1wXLhKghbvxBlUKlPqBIqDWOyhKI25gCu9FPUcPZ1rkqc44ieQ0H-vt6cpNLEziNxsOExmVCAtQAmWKiQAzTTB_s9VZIHJDzEWV0yj-jvkPVUT3QXUJTyom-X7A1WMWC_W42xBt7gwnSwPb2OI977mEqIEmu6_T-Ay1I5A9eqyT30KbFxPsIRczKLKqO2G6Bx6_jAjmtSv5fMxeVzxJaVpWOH0cg43Qysj-uDv8pI8Qb70_B-qjQz6hYJbOCvUxJyvjrrBtg_cdXGx6jsTsV7FqfmtOI1n3kVm8RkhaNqXeWm_HmElsECJ9TYCAaWqmdIp33Dg=w1280-no
 
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