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Wrapped in Vinyl

Frankster

Active Member
Got the RV7 finished late April and now have 95 hours on the airframe. Thought it was time to put colour on it.

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Looks great. Welcome to the vinyl club. My vinyl has been on for a year and half and is doing great.
 
Very Nice!

I did vinyl too and very please with the results so far.

Bevan

Your ident is very close to mine, picked for my initials.

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Is your 100% vinyl or is it vinyl over a base of white paint. I am glad to hear the vinyl is holding up. Have you had any issues with staining on the belly from oil?

Frank
 
All the aluminum parts are black vinyl over white vinyl or vice versa. I'm not getting much oil on the belly so far so can't answer. There's a few red bug splats on the leading edges that seems to leave a faint red stain. They may fade in time. Not sure if it would be any different with paint.

The cowl and other fiberglass parts are white paint color matched to the vinyl.

Bevan
 
Looks great Frank, how much of yours is vinyl? The blue, black stripes and obviously the maple leaf. Is the grey also vinyl? Blue wing tips, are they vinyl? My plan for my -4 is white base with vinyl trim. That way I can change it up every few years to keep it fresh.
 
Wrapped in vinyl

Your airplane looks great! I have been studying vinyl & doing some experiments with small patches -- did you do the wrap yourself or pay a professional?
I have watched almost every YouTube video available & read everything on the forum. ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated! ( I have an RV 7)
 
Great looking wraps, gents!

As a fellow Canuck, I'd sure appreciate if you could share info on who did the work, the materials used, or, if self-applied, where your sourced your materials and what the approximate costs are.

We've just finished priming the exterior of our project using Stewart Systems Eko-Poxy primer, so now I'm thinking about what will go on top of that primer. We've always had it in mind to have some sort of maple leaf logo on the tail - I really like the drop-shadow look on GBT!
 
Great looking wraps, gents!

As a fellow Canuck, I'd sure appreciate if you could share info on who did the work, the materials used, or, if self-applied, where your sourced your materials and what the approximate costs are.QUOTE]

-Self applied 3M 1080 Vinyl directly over alclad, no primer
-Under $2500 for all materials with lots left over
-$3000 for pro paint job (including prep) of the fiberglass parts, colour matched to the vinyl.
-I bought the vinyl through a local sign shop ( a little cheaper than on-line) and got a lot of tips and pointers from them too.

Bevan
 
Thanks for sharing this info, Bevan. It gives me a very helpful set of ballpark numbers with which to work.

Having just primed our airplane I have a feel for how much work goes into that job. I would hope applying vinyl might be easier in terms of not having to mask and not being nearly so temperature-dependent as one is with paint. Not having to worry so much about dust is another big plus in favour of vinyl, or at least that's how I see it.

As always, any thoughts you care to share about the application process would be appreciated.
 
A few reasons why I didn't wrap the cowl and wheel pants.

1) Initially, I wrapped the top cowl but I could still see some FG weave through it (under certain lighting conditions) and then knew I hadn't got it smooth enough. All the aluminum had been vinyled to that point. I was going to have to redo cowl including sanding it all down and trying another product to get it smooth.

2) The vinyl (on the top cowl) was starting to pull away at the tight inside corners of the cowl inlets. I knew it would only get worse with engine heat later. This may have also been due to improper/incomplete surface prep.

3) I was running out of time and had already spent enough time on the FG prep. I could do other things while the paint shop prepped and painted. The paint shop could take it right away and be done in a week.

4) I knew vinyling the wheel pants and spinner were going to be an additional challenge due to the shapes.

So far I had done everything myself on this build and felt I could use a little professional help.:eek: ...I mean delegate some work to the professionals. :)

Bevan
 
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Bevan,
Did you apply the vinyl by yourself? Looks like it might be hard to do without some help.
Bill
 
Yes, the vinyl has a strong attraction to itself. Electrostatically and by adhesive touching adhesive. If allowed to stick to itself, it requires immediate and delicate attention to separate it. Also, it picks up dirt/dust easily cause its so tacky so it cannot be allowed to touch a table surface adhesive side down.

It sticks like crazy to clean alclad alum, but is easily repositioned before squeegeeing it down.

Other than the pattern layout it usually takes 1-3 helpers depending on the size of sheet. Total man hours I would estimate was around 100 including the helpers. That includes a couple do-overs during the steeper part of the learning curve. :rolleyes:

Do a you-tube search on automotive vinyl application and "knife-less tape".

Overall, this was one of the easier skills to acquire.

Other benefits: No spray booth, paint masks or special equipment required. Good lighting required but not as good as paint booth lighting. Do one piece or go at it all day. No special prep work for the session other than co-ordinating helpers (to hold the other end).

Bevan
 
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Looks great Frank, how much of yours is vinyl? The blue, black stripes and obviously the maple leaf. Is the grey also vinyl? Blue wing tips, are they vinyl? My plan for my -4 is white base with vinyl trim. That way I can change it up every few years to keep it fresh.

Actually 100% of the plane is covered in Vinyl with the exception of the wheel pants. It was like tying to wrap foot balls. I painted them white and the stripes on them are Vinyl.

Frank
 
I had a local graphics company that does local work for marks and stripes on planes but has never done a full wrap. They had also done work on one of my trucks a few years ago and do high end colour changes on cars. We worked together on it and I am very happy with the result.

Frank
 
I had Twin City Graphics out of Kitchener do the plane. They are only 10 minutes from my hangar and we worked together on it. It was about $7,500 CDN all said and done. Vinyl does not stick well to primer so you will either have to sand it down to 800 grit before application or put on a clear coat for the vinyl to stick to. I chose to sand down the primer so as not to add weight.

Frank
 
Vinly and cracks?

How do you spot cracks in he skin with vinyl? Been considering too but was wondering about inspection for cracks.
 
That's a good point and hope the structural experts will chime in here.

I'm not an expert here. I feel large cracks (1/4 inch long) should show up. The vinyl is pretty thin (like paint) and stuck on pretty good. Just not as brittle as paint so there may be more flex with a crack and therefore not flake off as with paint. So a crack may appear different but still visible, just need to know what to look for. If in doubt, the vinyl is easily removed and replaced.

Cracks I'm more concerned about are in areas where there is no vinyl, like stabilizer attach structure, spars, push/pull tubes, hinge brackets etc. Not skins so much but I could be completely wrong here.

The upside, is I feel the vinyl may be a better coating "overall" than paint and therefore should perform is job longer and possibly seal better. Only time will tell. We're on the cutting edge here.

Bevan
 
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Hi Bevan,
Your 7A turned out great. Now that I have seen the finished product in a wrap job, I regret not hooking up with you the last time I flew into Abbotsford. I started wrapping mine last year but quit when the cold weather came. I'll resume the wrap as weather and helper time permits. Like you, I wrapped the cowl and then noticed the inlet ducts edges were not laying down as they should. I had used the proper 3M edge sealant as well. I have seen other wrap jobs that show the same trouble spot. I pulled my wrap off the cowl and its back to primer until I can get it painted.
Cam Andres
C-FTLL RV9A IO-360
Half wrap half polish half primer
 
wrap tech

Cam,
I have been sticking vinyl on things for 30 years, and there's no way I could ever do the cowl inlets, without a lot of cutting and patching.
I took a 3M wrap course...total waste of time. My opinion is there are definite tricks and tech for areas like this, the rest is practice, failure, practice, failure, ( rinse, repeat).
No doubt the guys at AircraftWraps.com are laughing at us, but fearless guys like you and Bevan are doing pretty darn well by trial 'n error.
One thing you can look at is all the install videos on Vimeo and YouTube, there's nothing like seeing it done. Sadly, most of the pros don't really explain how or why they are doing a certain technique. ( perhaps they want' you to enroll in their $1000 course? :)

For example, I saw one that showed some white coats in Germany warm & pre-stretch a chunk of vinyl, let cool, then when they applied it to a small car side mirror, the re-heat caused it to shrink back to it's original size, making it much easier to form around the tiny bulbous mirror mount.
similar video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FY8tHiQDq0

you'll see in the comments that another 'pro' says this is totally the wrong way to do it....which is what I really hate about wrapping.

do what works for you, have 'fun', an just thing of all the time and money you are saving sanding -priming and painting. :)
 
I'm liking the vinyl. You don't need to wear a diving bell and air hose. No noisy compressor. No "vinyl runs". No " over-vinyl" on everything. Do-overs right now instead of 2 days and a bunch of sanding. I've never tripped over an open can of vinyl thinner. Don't have to razor blade my glasses. Get to reuse my clothes. Plus, you can save the backing paper for masking the areas you do have to paint. All that and a chance to dodge paint cancer. I couldn't do cowl inlets either. Looked great, then they start to pull.
How do you all think it might work on silver ceconite?
 
never ending debate #283 ;-)

from my perspective, vinyl pulling back from an installed surface is due to a couple things, experimentally the variables can be reduced.
- surface prep, might include adhesion promoter, or even sanding. :eek:
- installation, where the vinyl is over-stretched, and almost no adhesive remains.
- tension induced by install, 'shrinks' back later, lifting from the surface.

so obviously, limit localized stretch as much as possible
- POST heat...almost nobody does this, but bring up to 180 F or spec if available for the vinyl, use an IR temp gun, good calibrated heat gun, EVENLY heat the whole area, dwell for required time....cross fingers.

not an exact science. :)

if you are doing laps and multiple colours, and/or running right up to your windshield etc......this is expensive stuff, but reduces some of the pucker factor. I think Bevan is a pro!:rolleyes:

http://knifelesstechsystems.com/Products.aspx
 
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