• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Vehicle Wrap Failure on Sharp Curves

Zachary Maeder

New Member
Hello everyone wanted to ask everyone's opinion on this topic. Every once in a while we get a vehicle that comes back with edge peeling on sharp curves, in this case, it is the top corner of a cab of a work dump truck. I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions on how to prevent this more in the future. We know it may happen sometimes but would like to hear what others do to prevent this. We are wanting other opinions because failure has never been this bad usually only a small lift here and there.

We always post-heat and use clear edge sealant when we can.

Edge Sealant: We do not use the actual 3M product, we cut laminate into stripes and use that, so maybe that is the issue sometimes?

Material Used for this project:
3M180 Wrap Film Printed on to produce color
Laminated with Gloss


Attached are the pictures of the failure, Plus a grille we wrapped too for this project I think had failure as well (not pictured).
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20200924_085639.jpg
    IMG_20200924_085639.jpg
    1.2 MB · Views: 709
  • IMG_20200924_085652.jpg
    IMG_20200924_085652.jpg
    1.3 MB · Views: 535
  • IMG_20200924_085649.jpg
    IMG_20200924_085649.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 525
Last edited:

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
It looks like it was stretched too much during installation. Maybe don't go all the way up that curve and use knifeless tape to trim a little before that.
 

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
You can stretch vinyl a lot more than you think, but that stretch can't end up near an edge When you stretch vinyl, you are also stretching the adhesive which means you have less holding power to resist the shrinkage.

3m 180cv3 cast feels like calendared vinyl compared to Avery 1105 with the 1.3 mil laminate. I have more success with Avery on difficult areas like that and on the recesses on Sprinters. I tend to prefer 3M materials for color changes though.

prestretch.jpg
 

Pewter0000

Graphic Design | Production
I overstretched while wrapping my mirrors a while back for practice, and they bacon-edged like that. Asked our installer how far I can stretch it, and he said honestly pretty far, but I probably forgot to let it rest a bit and post-heat before trimming (he was right! I neglected the patience and heat)
 

GAC05

Quit buggin' me
The base 1080 material might not be helping there. It is thick at 4.5 mils and adding laminate on top makes it even thicker. I do not think 3M recommends printing 1080 so it could go better if you start with some IJ180 or even 480 digital print film.
 

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
The base 1080 material might not be helping there. It is thick at 4.5 mils and adding laminate on top makes it even thicker. I do not think 3M recommends printing 1080 so it could go better if you start with some IJ180 or even 480 digital print film.

Good catch. I read it as 180c. 1080 or 2080 already have the laminate baked in.
 

Yeahgor

Born to be The Designer.
So let me get this straight............The OP has an issue and asks for opinions, and when I offer mine, according to you I must be perfect, and have to make a video to prove it.

I do not consider myself perfect, but I am good at what I do.

In Japan culture they like to say that you can see forever on burning the fire, flow the water and how works professional.
I like to watch video instead to read the descriptions.
This is only thing I want to say. I never been close to some proofs of skills. I’m very sorry if my post was possible to understand some bad way. I will delete it right now.
I do apologize my bad English.
 

Reveal1

New Member
Glad this forum doesn't use Japanese as the default language; hard enough to understand the nuances of the various English dialects.
 

Zachary Maeder

New Member
The base 1080 material might not be helping there. It is thick at 4.5 mils and adding laminate on top makes it even thicker. I do not think 3M recommends printing 1080 so it could go better if you start with some IJ180 or even 480 digital print film.
You are correct it was the 180, not 1080. That was a typo.
 

MP Custom

New Member
My first thought was either to much or not enough Post Heating. But ..also Overstretched. Mind you.. I am in no bloody way an expert.
 

MikePro

New Member
Stretched cast vinyl, is basically calendared vinyl.
after stretching/shrinking/applying those curves, the vinyl that extends-past the complicated curves needs to be lifted&heated as to allow the vinyl to shrink back to its "cast-state" before finishing application & trimming/tiling. If the perimeter of the vinyl is applied in its stretched-state, then that will be the first point of failure as the vinyl will attempt to shrink/lift over time.\
 
Top