20' Trailer wrap

[Kemble]

What would you of charged for this design & wrap install?

Customer comes in wanting a wrap for their trailer. Wanted the illusion of their car inside (like uhaul does with their roll up door). Everything was custom designed; the character, the flames, the font, etc.

3M IJ180CV3 with 3M 8900 Carbon Fiber laminate.

The trailer details are as follows:
20' Cimarron enclosed car trailer.
Driver side: 7 Panels, total sqft = 131 (Has a side door)
Passenger side: 7 Panels, total sqft = 131 (Has a side door)
Front: 5 Panels, total sqft = 48 (has diamond plate on bottom half)
Rear: 2 panels (The car has 8518 Lam), total sqft 54, then overlays on top & bottom in orange with the carbon laminate.

Panel cut to the edge of the panels with no vinyl overlap for a seamless look.

Silicone was removed between panels to eliminate as much white space as possible.

Sadly, we spent 3x more time on this than we quoted

My installers had never done a seamless wrap before so it definitely was a challenge for them. Each panel was designed with a 2" overlap for lining up purposes then it was trimmed off.

Overall, it came out amazing, the customer was absolutely overwhelmed with their new look.

 

[gnubler]

Nice work! That looks awesome.

I have no input on costs as I don't do wraps, but others will chime in.

 

[JBurton]

Why did it take 3x longer, just from trimming down to match the metal panel size?
Looks great though! It's a shame that gnarly face is going to be the only thing he sees in his rearview for the drive to the events, but not everybody would be thrilled with a centerfold driving down the highways.

 

[Kemble]

Why did it take 3x longer, just from trimming down to match the metal panel size?
Looks great though! It's a shame that gnarly face is going to be the only thing he sees in his rearview for the drive to the events, but not everybody would be thrilled with a centerfold driving down the highways.

2 people 2 days to prep (degrease, silicone removal), 4 days 2 people to wrap. 96 labor hours total. We quoted 32. Not happy at all. So I'm just trying to see if we actually underquoted it, or my installers were dragging their feet. There were 4 reprints (which I'm also not happy about, but shit happens).

 

[weyandsign]

4 days to wrap and 4 reprints seems excessive to me. I would have figured 40 hours labor. But don't do it all the time so who knows. Looks good though, great job!

 

[Kemble]

4 days to wrap and 4 reprints seems excessive to me. I would have figured 40 hours labor. But don't do it all the time so who knows. Looks good though, great job!

My thoughts exactly, hence why I'm looking for more feedback from the industry.

 

[DL Signs]

Unless it was really bad, not seeing how just prep alone took 2 people 2 days. There's not a lot of rivets, everything except the nose is just flat panels, should have been a pretty straightforward job. I don't think you massively under-quoted it, weyandsign is about where I'd be thinking, around 40, and you're in that ballpark too. Some jobs can just kick your butt once you get going that you don't expect to, and take substantially more time than you anticipated, so its always good to pad a little to what you think it should be, but taking 3x longer...??? Don't know your guys, how good, dedicated, or experienced they are, but if they didn't drag their feet, they probably need more experience to be efficient, which unfortunately comes at your expense too.

 

[BluetailGFX]

The increasing variable is definitely the carbon fiber laminate. I personally would never use a laminate rated at just 3 years, and costs $2.00+ p/sqft more than a standard 8 year gloss laminate, for a trailer wrap.
You basically doubled your cost in the project by using that laminate. Its also slightly harder to work with, prep and install. (thank the sign gods you did not rivets)

So to answer your question, for me, I only do trailers as paneled installs. No seams, like you did here.
Using a standard Gloss laminate I would be at $4-5K, with some art time figured in.(BTW, nice job on the design)
If I had to use the Carbon Lam, I would literally add the additional cost of the laminate onto the cost of the regular. $6-7k.

As far as time goes, I usually plan for 30-45minutes per panel for installs. I also do prealignments from panel to panel on the tables, leaving tape registrations for a faster alignment on the trailer.

My Est Cost for Regular lam, materials only $855 old school rule of 5 times gives a range == $4,275.00
My Est Cost for Carbon lam, materials only $1,597.56 old school rule of 5 times gives a range == $7,987.80

From there you can figure out how much profit from materials you will be looking at and determine from that how many guys, for how many days, leaves you enough profit after materials and labor to justify taking on the job.

 

[JBurton]

2 people 2 days to prep (degrease, silicone removal)

Did they do this in the air conditioned wrap area? That's not worth the floorspace, have them clean it outside with a final wipe down inside. See if that time speeds up. Also cleaning time, not prep time, but cleaning road grime off the vehicle should be an added cost/hr. It encourages the customer to actually stop at the car wash on the way over.

4 days 2 people to wrap

This is my speed, and I barely do it. These guys are wrappers, right? Are you roping downtime from reprints into this figure?

 

[ProColorGraphics]

I am no wrap master by any stretch of the imagination, but that seems a bit long to me. I usually hire out my installs, but had to do my first one is probably over a year this past week. Was a 34' stage trailer. I don't think we had that much time into that one and the panels were wavy tin. That was between me, my wife and a couple family members who offered to help clean it.

One thing I tried was pre-seaming the panels. That was a HUGE time saver. So the side was installed as one 8'x32' piece. It weighed a ton, but I didn't have to worry about aligning the seams, which would have been a nightmare on this one!!

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Seems to me like two people could get that done in 2 days

 

[gnubler]

What would you of charged for this design

So what did you charge for art time? What was the creative process? It's a badass design!

 

[tulsagraphics]

Very cool design! Love it!

But as far as labor goes... man, that's a long time, even with the initial prep. Our installer knocks stuff out so fast (granted, he has several decades of experience).
Here's an example of him wrapping a 53' dry van -- by himself -- in just over 4 hours:

(excuse the loud music!)

 

[jcskikus]

Did a 24' trailer last week using 3M IJ180CV3 and 8518 laminate. Took longer to print, laminate, and trim than to install. Install took under 5 hours with prep. Granted, it wasn't textured laminate, but that doesn't matter if the walls are smooth. The screws on the sheets were taken off, except for two on each panel to keep it in place. Your installers either need to be re-educated or look for a more experienced crew.
The only thing I would do different on your prints is to make the overlap no more than one inch. It makes it easier to line up and when trimming, the less likely the wrap could have waivered or adjusted during installation. These trailers are simple.
I loved how yours came out. I wish I had as much creative freedom with mine but the town was very specific. It took weeks for them to get me RAW camera shots so I can manipulate in Lightroom and weren't pixelated.

 

[DL Signs]

wrapping a 53' dry van -- by himself -- in just over 4 hours

Even though it's flat surfaces, to do that, in that time, it really shows the benefit of experience.

 

[tulsagraphics]

Even though it's flat surfaces, to do that, in that time, it really shows the benefit of experience.

Indeed!

 

[White Haus]

Very cool design! Love it!

But as far as labor goes... man, that's a long time, even with the initial prep. Our installer knocks stuff out so fast (granted, he has several decades of experience).
Here's an example of him wrapping a 53' dry van -- by himself -- in just over 4 hours:

(excuse the loud music!)

That's insane. With rivets and hardware yet! How long does the pre-seaming of the panels take though? That's gotta take some time to get it right. Would love to see that whole process as well.

 

[tulsagraphics]

That's insane. With rivets and hardware yet! How long does the pre-seaming of the panels take though? That's gotta take some time to get it right. Would love to see that whole process as well.

About 3-3.5 hours for 2 people on a job that size. The panels are printed/labeled in order, and automatic trimming with a Fotoba only takes about 10-12 minutes per 50 yard roll... so it's mostly just sliding the panels across the table and running some masking tape).
I wouldn't say that we spend a great deal of time getting the panels to line up perfectly because it's usually not possible with print distortion... but if the seams are within a 1/4" on a billboard size wrap, that's totally fine from 8-10ft away.

 

[Squared2002]

We do work like this pretty regularly and looking at your materials we would be around $18-$22sq’ just for the Materials & Print. Design time we charge $150 an hour, Installation for this would be anywhere from $4.50-$6.50sq’. However I would really reconsider the choice of Laminate as it’s only a 3 year outdoor?

 

[Gino]

I can't say we've never left anything go out without imperfections, but when you look at this one on a photograph...... how does this stuff look in real time and somewhat up close ?? With mistakes like this, I don't see how it took so long ?? Were you on site when this took place ?? I think those installers need a good talkin' to.