Chrome Vehicle Wrap

[sam gha]

Hi,

Tomorrow we'll start working on our first full wrap in mirror silver chrome vinyl. Our customer will drop off the vehicle, and he will give us plenty of time to finish because we'll keep showcase it in our show room. It's a Saturn sky convertible, 2007.

The question is, what do you recommend for this kind of wrap?? I'm confused between Arlon or Avery; at the Sema this year, I saw a lot of chrome done by Avery. We tried Hexis before which was not on a full wrap. It was for striping on Limousine.

We also want to laminate to protect chrome vinyl from scratching. Any suggestions, did you full wrap in chrome before, please advise.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SqueeGee]

I wrapped a race car in Avery's chrome red. Since it's a round track car, I didn't stress about it being perfect(because it gets scuffed up quite a bit). It's definitely different than other wrap films. It can't be stretched as far and is harder to hide seams. If you do stretch it or heat it too much, it will discolor. I'd take a piece a scrap and play with it first to find its limits before going to work if I were you.

Here's the car I did. Top is 1080 carbon fiber.

 

[CreatedDesigns]

that's a cute lil race car lol. Not really sure it would wrap the same as a full size car.

I would like to give the chrome shot as well, but no customers around here that would want anything like that.

 

[sam gha]

I wrapped a race car in Avery's chrome red. Since it's a round track car, I didn't stress about it being perfect(because it gets scuffed up quite a bit). It's definitely different than other wrap films. It can't be stretched as far and is harder to hide seams. If you do stretch it or heat it too much, it will discolor. I'd take a piece a scrap and play with it first to find its limits before going to work if I were you.

Here's the car I did. Top is 1080 carbon fiber.

Thanks for the information, I heard from my partner in Netherlands that he use a wet felt to avoid small scratches when he wrap chrome, and you are right when I usually wrap with 3M and see small scratches I use the heat to make them disappear.
Do you recommend the 3M in chrome, never tried it before???

 

[SightLine]

3M chrome? You mean the one they had out for just a very short period of time and discontinued a year or two ago? Anyways from everything I've read or hear the Avery chrome has been the best one out there but a few others are just getting out that are supposedly also pretty good like Arlon. I know many actually laminate the Avery chrome with a good cast optically clear laminate to reduce scratching and definitely use a geek wraps squeegee.

 

[ExecuPrintGS]

A good steamer will also help install chrome a lot better vs. a heat gun or IR heater.

 

[XtremeXccessories]

Chrome is definitely hard to work with. There's very little stretch and once you stretch it too much it whitens and it's toast, you can't hit it with a heat gun and start over. I'm not sure that you'll be able to do the front bumper on a Sky in one piece, they're pretty damn rounded. Since that's a smaller car the 48" width it comes in might work for the entire vehicle, but in the Camaro I did, I had to throw on some matte black accents to hide the seams on the hood and sides. So keep that in mind, if there's an area you just can't get in one piece then try to throw on some accents (it'll look a lot better than showing a seam).

I tried to install an unlaminated trunk first with a wet Geek Wraps squeegee, but even then it scratched. Hell, even my knuckles would scratch the stuff if I dragged them while squeegeeing. We laminated with Oracal 290 to protect it during install and extend the life a bit and it worked great. Also be very careful with heat, even after it's laid on the vehicle it'll whiten pretty easily if you get it too hot.

Good luck.

 

[Dennis422]

Use "Pressure on demand" Steamer to heat up chrome instead of a heat gun. (search google for it)
That will wet the chrome and with use of "wet edge" squeegee, you should not have any scratches.

 

[the east coast kid]

Nice work Extreme