For the past 6 weeks or so I've been working on the body of the Purple Beast trying to identify and remove all the rust. In the process I have figured out two things. First I'm a terrible body man. Second a real bodyman is the only hope for my car and I can't afford it.
So I decided to have some fun with it and started looking into Vinyl car wraps. I have learned a lot about vinyl in the last couple of months.
I started with the basic body work which you've seen in previous posts. It's not great but I decided that the goal of the project was just to do the best I could so that i could drive the car around with being horribly embarrassed and hopefully stop the rust from progressing quickly. Then I ordered 10yds @ 30" and 10yds @ 48" of Oracal 651 Calandered vinyl in matte black and started changing the Purple Beast to the Black Beast.
First step was to paint the parts that I couldn't wrap. Door sills, the inside of the doors, the bottom of the hood and the hatch. I also put a thin coat of paint on the hood so that the vinyl would have something better to stick to.
I forgot to take a picture of the hatch.
Then I started wrapping stuff. I started with the front bumper...long story...it didn't go well. The vinyl I bought is just no good for the complex curves of the bumpers. I'll come back to that later.
I went on to the hood. The basic strategy is to cut your vinyl roughly to size, remove the backing on one side and cut it off, spray the application fluid on the work piece and the vinyl and lay it on...
Then you use a squeegy to remove the wrinkles and push the fluid out. It's much trickier than it sounds but the application fluid makes it possible.
Went on to the fenders...
This is what it looks like after I did the doors today...
Long story short...I wasn't able to wrap the bumpers so I decided I would paint them. I used the same Krylon Fusion Satin Black that I used for the other painted parts and it's not bad but it's too shiney and it doesn't hold up at all on the front bumper. So I decided to go find some of the good stuff. I found a decent deal on 3M 1080 matte black vinyl which aught to be enough to complete the job. I hope that it's the same color as the cheap stuff. We'll see I guess.
There are basically two kinds of vinyl. Calandered vinyl is made by heating up the plastic and squishing it through a series of dies to make it thinner and thinner until it's 0.0025" thick. This makes a product which is slightly rigid and not extremely conformable.
Cast vinyl is poured from liquid which hardens to a much more malleable product so it can be slightly thicker and still much easier to work with. In addition, the vinyl that is made by 3M and a few others for wrapping cars has pressure activated adhesive with air release channels. So it basically slides on the surface of the car like cloth until you press it down and the channels let the air out so no air bubbles. But it's way WAY more money.
I bought enough of the cheap stuff to cover the whole car for $97 locally. I got less than 5yds of 3M @ 60" wide for $120 + shipping. Enough to cover the whole car would be about $600.
So I'm wrapping the bumpers and redoing the hood (it has seams because the cheap stuff is only 48" wide) with the 3M and I'll use the cheap stuff on the roof and the hatch.
I'll post pics when it's done. Happy to hear your thoughts.
94' RS/GS/MS/CF Monster Turbo...coming soon.
93' GS SE, the Black Beast, the former love of my life...soon to be gutted and crushed.
94' GS, black on black, now in several small pieces...and one large crushed piece.
2007 Mazda3 GT Sport --- super fun
2004 Honda RC51 --- Lost forever to some theavin' bastard
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