I've had a search around the forum, and there's a number of people that have wrapped their own cars.
I'd like to do mine, namely, the nose, bonnet, scuttle and rear wings in a solid colour.
My question to those that have done it is...
Where did you start on the nose? I envisage starting on the top and wrapping around the sides, with a joint or possibly an infill at the bottom. But,
I've ready on one post that it wasn't the best way to do it, but no further detail, so I'm assuming they'd lie the vinyl on
from the front edge and work back?
if you build traditional rc planes this is very familiar... I'm currently working my way through a large covering job at the moment
think wind and rain and how that flows over the surface, you always want any overlaps or joints to be in the direction of flow ie the wind cannot get
under and rip off the covering, same applies to the rain
So start at the back at the bottom and work your way forward and up with each additional section, this also helps hide the joint as looking down you
can't see them. Something as curved as the nose cone can't realistically be done in one sheet so you'll need at least a bottom and
the top and sides on one go depending on how flexible the sheet gets with heat.
Mr W - you say the nose couldn't be done as one, but a lot of the online vids of the process show some mega curved sections done with heat - is
this material specific? Im interested because I have my old GT4 which could do with new paint, but a white wrap would do just as well!
The fitter that wrapped my car is 3M trained/approved with a few years experience and he couldn't do the nose cone in one piece,although mine
was the first seven type car he had done.
I just can believe how expensive getting your car wrapped is, it's just plastic film, very similar to the stuff we use to cover the planes and
that isn't expensive. I was quoted £1200 to wrap my old Bluebird in camo, which is totally unjustifiable nonsense.
In the end painted it for £60 with rattle cans and it looked much better than the wrap.
quote:Originally posted by coyoteboy
Mr W - you say the nose couldn't be done as one, but a lot of the online vids of the process show some mega curved sections done with heat - is
this material specific? Im interested because I have my old GT4 which could do with new paint, but a white wrap would do just as well!
It's just too deep, the nose cone is about 600mm long, even vacuum forming would struggle with that. There's no advantage in trying to
cover in one go and the joints will not be noticeable especially as they'd be at the bottom. Mind too just like anything when you stretch the
hell out this stuff it gets thinner and more likely to tear, wrapping instead of stretching will give you a more durable film.
I'm currently working my way through a large covering job at the moment 
