What is a wrap?

What is a vehicle wrap

Vehicle Branding - Vehicle Wraps

Vehicle wrapping and how its done. Matt Black wraps, Van wrapping, Car graphics, Matt wrapping, Car vinyl graphics, Digitally printed van wrapping Vehicle wrapping is not an easy thing to undertake and here we explain how it's done.

Applying a pressure sensitive vinyl film to create a vehicle wrap may seem an easy job of placing adhesive backed vinyl film to cover a bus or truck shell but, appearances can be deceptive. Applying fleet/vehicle wraps requires a tremendous amount of patience and concentration in lining up each vinyl film element and transferring it to the vehicle. There are no special machines to apply this; it's all done by hand and is definitely not for the faint of heart.

The coverage of a vinyl wrap on a bus can be akin to placing a series of large decals in exacting proportions in very specific parts of the bus. The trick is getting all the different vinyl panels to perfectly line up as one complete picture. Not easy. When applying a vinyl film on a bus, one must take into account whether the wrap is temporary or permanent, where it's going on the bus and what the material is (metal or glass).

There is also the surface condition; is it smooth? Is it corrugated? Are there separations within the surface (window openings, door gaps, gas inlet hatch, etc.)? Covering windows is easy, but it requires a different kind of vinyl, a perforated one-way viewing vinyl called contravision that allows it to cover windows, yet letting passengers still see through them. Most acute in the design and manufacturing process is creating a two-dimensional product, computer-altered to be applied to compound curves.

So where do you start?

Design: The first place to start is the design which is also the hardest to get right. As if the design is incorrect then the whole wrap can be rendered useless. Most wrapping companies will not get involved with the design as it takes too much of there time up and they are unlikely to be familiar with your industry and the style you like to work in. Although the design is the clever bit, designers who have not done it before might stay clear of vehicle wrapping but when it comes down to it its not out of there capacity. As design agencies are becoming more familiar with vehicle wrapping it is becoming easier to come up with an effective design.

The Print: The best printing results come from high-end machines like HP Scitex and VuTek’s which are lower in resolution than machines like Mutoh and Mimaki but are a fraction of the price and faster. Resolution and Viewing distance is by far the most misunderstood concept involved in the printing and vehilce wrapping industries. What most people do not realise is that viewing distance goes hand in hand with the resolution and size of an image (for more infoamtion please see veiwing distance report) It is not always nessasay to have a bus wrapped with photographic quanlity print which is 720dpi if your viwing audence is going to see it from 5 meters away and at 65mph!

So what materials?

The self adhesive vinyl used for wrapping plays a very important roll in the longagivity of your vehicle wrap. Inferior vinyl’s can fail making the wrap look untidy and unprofessional and when it comes to removal can leave a glue residue which takes hours if not days to fully remove making it a complete false economy.

Avery MPI1005 EZ.

The Avery MPI 1005 EZ is by far the best vinyl to use as it feature the Easy Apply technology that cuts down on wrinkling and damage, bubbles and waste during installation. It also offers 100 percent clean remove ability on the adhesive if it’s a sound OEM paint surface. This technology cuts down installation time, which means your vehicles can get back to work sooner! Avery also offer the Avery® Supreme Cover is Avery’s warranty system, which offers you all the reassurance you can wish for.

What is AVERY® Supreme Cover?

In the unlikely event that one of our films is not in a perfect shape, our system offers you a warranty on several ranges of self-adhesive materials, in combination with a variety of inks, original equipment manufacturers and converters. Avery® Supreme Cover covers not only the cost of the defective material, but also the cost of inks, re-conversion, removal and re-application. Underlining Avery’s belief in providing quality and durability.

3M Controltac Plus graphic film with Comply Performance Series 180C.

Comply is a mechanical feature that allows air to travel through the adhesive, so there are usually fewer air bubbles and the film can be applied with time-saving techniques such as large squeegees, The pressure-activated adhesive allows the film to be repositioned during installation until pressure is applied to the film surface.

Other competitors are up and coming with vinyl films designed for vehicle wrapping, too. Like the MACTac’s JT5529P is emerging as a popular choice. The product is coated on one side with a permanent, opaque, acrylic pressure sensitive adhesive.

When it come to installation:

“The materials make all the difference in the world,” says Ben Jago. “Some of it is very aggressive and it makes it harder to lay down and pull back up to reposition. People try to cut corners using different brands ­and there are many, ­but then installation becomes so difficult that you can mess it all up. If you use high end products, it can cut 30 percent of the installation time.”

Regardless of the brand name, experts stress the use of cast over calendared vinyl for vehicle wrapping. While calendared vinyl starts out as a solid and is melted and formed into a sheet, cast vinyl starts out as liquid. The end result is that calendared vinyl has a memory of being something else and cast vinyl does not.

In application, if you use calendared vinyl over a rivet, then it will tent because calendared vinyl tends to shrink a bit. Cast vinyl doesn’t shrink so it allows installers to go over rivets, corrugation and complex curves that run both horizontally and vertically with greater ease and longer-lasting performance.

So how much does it cost?

The average going rate for wrapping vehicles varies depending on the size and type of vehicle. But a good rule of thumb in today’s market is between £45 and £50 per square meter installed ­ plus design fees. However for larger fleets this price will be a lot less.

Thinking of wrapping a vehicle? Read this.