Clear Vinyl Car Wrap Material

[CreativeCreationGraphics]

Has anyone ever used a clear, printable material for car wraps? A customer wants an image on the side of his corvette that would be too difficult to cut out and I don't want to risk trying to match the paint color of his car. Our printer cannot print white so the lightning bolt would be clear, not white.

 

[ProColorGraphics]

I have seen people who have used it. Look up Wrap Artist. He did a really cool jeep with it.

Wrap Artist

 

[AKwrapguy]

Why is this to complicated or difficult to cut?
How is it risk to match a color?

So if you do clear your going to see a seam unless you go to the body panel. But than his car is going to look odd as the front quarter panel will not match the rest of the vehicle.
The white lightning bolt you could just do with white vinyl.

Tell the guy that you if he wants this done than you will need his vehicle for a few days so you can color match it. Go to your printed pantone sheet that you've made. Find the closest color, print a few sample of that color and a few variations till you get it dialed in. Print, cut, weed, pre-mask and apply. Out the door he goes and to the bank you go. I would look at doing something like a metallic material or pearl with metallic flakes or Gloss white Aluminum from 3M.... that would be on 'legit' as the kids say.

 

[Bly]

I believe 3M has a new air release clear.

 

[Terry01]

Worth a watch and listen to what was used.

 

[MikePro]

i've seen it done before in videos, and have done some smaller pieces with contours with clear.... same theory as wrapping, but adding wet-apply with heat assist for conforming, and waiting until morning to trim.

i'd save the headache, however, as it won't look good unless you wrap the whole car:
simply bleed the black border, print and cut just the outer shape on a cast clear vinyl. wet apply & heat assist, avoiding too much stretching.
added bonus, overlay pearl metallic white vinyl over the white-portion of the lightning bolt.

 

[eahicks]

Why wouldn't you print on regular wrap vinyl and contour cut? What am I missing?

Horrible thing to do to a Corvette anyway...

 

[jfiscus]

I've done some crazy cut stuff in the past. Go ahead and match the color with a color chart. Print the wrap & cut it, then laminate it and cut the laminate with 1/8" extra laminate around the previously cut sharp edges (add a rounded corner stroke for this 2nd cut line). It'll look great and last forever this way.

 

[CreativeCreationGraphics]

I've done some crazy cut stuff in the past. Go ahead and match the color with a color chart. Print the wrap & cut it, then laminate it and cut the laminate with 1/8" extra laminate around the previously cut sharp edges (add a rounded corner stroke for this 2nd cut line). It'll look great and last forever this way.

Update:

Ended up color matching and just printing on reg wrap vinyl NOT clear. Also, I know that the yellow color match is not perfect but the customer insisted that it was best match

 

[AKwrapguy]

Update:

Ended up color matching and just printing on reg wrap vinyl NOT clear. Also, I know that the yellow color match is not perfect but the customer insisted that it was best match

Why not just do a pillow cut or a bleed cut to shape, Would this not have worked better and this way you wouldn't have had to worry about the color match?

 

[CreativeCreationGraphics]

Why not just do a pillow cut or a bleed cut to shape, Would this not have worked better and this way you wouldn't have had to worry about the color match?

The owner wanted those panels completely covered

 

[JTBoh]

Pukeachu.

 

[AKwrapguy]

The owner wanted those panels completely covered

That's unfortunate...

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

3M 180mc-114 is their wrap cast clear

 

[grafxxx]

i printed this on glossy orajet laminate almost 2 years ago still looks good. i believe they sell an air release laminate .

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

The things people waste their $$ on.