How do you set up to print 52' trailer wrap

[Signed Out]

Alright... ready to print a 52' trailer wrap... Never had to tile something of this size before. Normally I would bring the artwork into photoshop and split it up with the overlapps and save as tiffs and print but being as this is 624 inches im am not sure on how to do this. ( CS5 . Versaworks . roland xj540 ) the artwork is at 10th scale and was created in illustrater. Should I tile in photoshop at 10th scale, then, in versaworks scale to 1000%? Or do I do it all in photoshop? I have yet to use the crop and tile feature in versaworks and am open to doing it that way but would need a little instructing, and dont know if I could put in the overlapps in versa. How would you do this?

 

[HulkSmash]

what rip do you use? Most have tiling features in them.

 

[National Sign Co. - Print]

The easiest way is to burn the creative to a DVD and send to:

Merritt Graphics
650 Franklin Ave
Hartford Ct 06114

Attn: Michael Failla

 

[petesign]

^^ probably a really good idea there.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

We have a couple methods we use... Via Photoshop or Corels powerclip tool

1) If trailer is a solid panel trailer (no seams) or corrugated we panel front to rear with the smallest panel at the rear of the trailer with a 1/2" (or whatever you are comfortable with) overlap, Always install opposite though.

2) If trailer has vertical panels we measure every panel and tile our graphics with .25" bleeds to those panels to make a seamless install. This allows you to install in any direction (We usually start from the middle to prevent any slanting or "walking").

Again we do this all in photoshop or corel draw (simply because illustrator has a page limit) at full scale (to prevent scaling errors in the rip).

 

[Signed Out]

alright so i dont want to scale anything in versaworks?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

I have a HP Latex with Onyx, I don't know much about rolands versaworks package... I have had issues with Onyx scaling being off so I just avoid it and feed full scale files into the rip.

 

[Signed Out]

yea I think im just gonna do it full scale in photoshop seems like the best way, only thing is at full size at 150ppi the file is 3.99g before i start tiling

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

For a Trailer the general consensus is 60 - 72dpi is more than sufficient.

We personally don't go below 150 but we have a very fast computer (i7-2700k) and lots of memory (32gb).

 

[Signed Out]

what quality setting do you print at normaly we print wraps at standard quality (540x720dpi) but i am thinking i want to print this at high speed (360x720dpi) which will save me 8 minutes per panel which would save me around 3.5 hours of printing total

 

[HulkSmash]

I'd print nothing less then 720, but, that's just me. Also you can size it up 1000 percent no problem, and then add your bleed in your rip...

 

[Signed Out]

also if you wouldn't mine pm me what you would charge for a job like this I am curious to see where I am at on my price, if not its cool. regardless thanks for the advice.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

we do 600x600 on our latex, 1200x1200 for fine stuff or showroom type wraps.

 

[Pat Whatley]

Just thought I'd mention that I know somebody who wrapped an old semi-trailer with the corrugated sides. Made it all the way to the end of the first side before he realized his layout was 2' short because of the extra material the corrugations took up.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

yes, that is also a major factor... Either vertical or Horizontal you have to factor for the added material required to cover the corrugations.

 

[Signed Out]

sorry I forgot to mention no corrugations just seams where the panel overlapp and more than 8500 rivets... its gonna be a fun weekend...

 

[Signed Out]

so... what does everyone use for rivets we currently use rolle pro and torch and as long as we get the channel nice and tight to the row of rivets it works awesome

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

I use a rivet cutter or do them by hand with my thumbs or a squeege.

 

[Rooster]

If it's in Illustrator, set up your artboards to be your panels and whatever you spec for bleed will be automatically applied to all the panels. Butt the artboards up side by side and drop your artwork on top. Then you can save the panels out individually as a PDF of EPS by clicking the use artboard button at the bottom of the save window below where you name your files.

Your overlap will be twice whatever you set the bleed to be, since it's bleeding both panels into each other. 1/2" bleed (at full size) becomes 1" of overlap when both panels match up together.