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Wrap Vinyl Over Truck Welds... Pop Or Not?

P

player

New Member
I am putting a large decal on a truck that has overlapping metal, and the seams are welded. They are not very drastic, but still I have to deal with a seam with an 1/4" weld in the step. The welds are very well done, but there are still small variances that make it impossible to get 100% of all the air out. I have got it really nice, but still some very small (1/8" or smaller) air bubbles are still there. I used Orical 3179 air release and 290 lam.

Do I leave them or use a pin to release the trapped air?

Is it worse having the air bubble or the tiny hole the pin makes?

Do these air pockets eventually go away on their own?

Thanks
 
MikePro

MikePro

New Member
I thought "the bubbles will go away on their own" was something people told clients when they got called-out on a botched install :noway:
ideally you'd want to get rid of as many bubbles as possible. vehicles will get the occasional day in the hot sunlight, and air trapped under the wrap will expand and could stretch the vinyl.
 
MikePro

MikePro

New Member
pin-popping only becomes an issue when installing calendared vinyl, where the hole becomes a potential spot for vinyl failure/cracking as the material shrinks & pulls against itself.
cast materials, poke/pop bubbles with no regrets. just make sure to post-heat for good adhesion/thermalforming.
 
P

player

New Member
MikePro said:
pin-popping only becomes an issue when installing calendared vinyl, where the hole becomes a potential spot for vinyl failure/cracking as the material shrinks & pulls against itself.
cast materials, poke/pop bubbles with no regrets. just make sure to post-heat for good adhesion/thermalforming.
Click to expand...

Thank you (and to all who answered!).
 
natedawg9640

natedawg9640

New Member
small bubbles will pass through the vinyl.

If the area you are talking about is in a spot that you are stretching the vinyl into it basically at all... I suggest you avoid puncturing the the vinyl in that spot. if you compromise the vinyl... that will be the first spot that water and air will enter and it will tunnel in from there. if you do puncture it... i'd suggest you seal the hole if possible.
 
TyrantDesigner

TyrantDesigner

Art! Hot and fresh.
they make a felt application squeegee for things like that ... a little heat (or a hotter day) and time can get you past the welds without air bubbles, if you're worried about it coming up off the weld ... did you use edge prep?
 
M

Marilynn

New Member
Popping won't be a good option. It will be like making a pin hole in your parachute (NOT THAT CLOSE :D). Vehicle wraps are to be done delicately and even a small hole can slowly make the wrap rip-off from the body. Then the whole wrap will have to be redone. Try your max to squeeze it off using the squeegees or similar tools that is available in the market.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
P

player

New Member
The welds are 5 or 6 feet in length, and I have a few small (1/16" -1/8") air bubbles. I used a felt squeegee and heat but there are parts of the welds that are like coral. I could not get the vinyl to get into the areas without the little pockets of air.
 
Jester1167

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
I have never heard of Orical 3179, but if it is intermediate leave it the way it is. It will just shrink and bridge over the low spots. Using a cast lam helps but not enough.
 
TyrantDesigner

TyrantDesigner

Art! Hot and fresh.
player said:
The welds are 5 or 6 feet in length, and I have a few small (1/16" -1/8") air bubbles. I used a felt squeegee and heat but there are parts of the welds that are like coral. I could not get the vinyl to get into the areas without the little pockets of air.
Click to expand...

if you have undercuts in the welds or pockets for the air, you're never going to get those out unless you pop them. I don't just because if you pre-plan your graphics and use an edge prep on the welds ... it won't come up anyways. the most I might do is if they are the size of a lollipop stick diameter ... i might just poke it and finger rub it (best you can do sometimes) but that is to make sure on the hotter than hot days it doesn't expand with the heat. but any good wrapping material will survive a pin hole or 20.
 
P

player

New Member
TyrantDesigner said:
if you have undercuts in the welds or pockets for the air, you're never going to get those out unless you pop them. I don't just because if you pre-plan your graphics and use an edge prep on the welds ... it won't come up anyways. the most I might do is if they are the size of a lollipop stick diameter ... i might just poke it but that is to make sure on the hotter than hot days it doesn't expand with the heat. but any good wrapping material will survive a pin hole or 20.
Click to expand...

What edge prep can be used with Orical vinyl?

I called the 3m dealer and they had 2 products but did not know what they were for.
 
TyrantDesigner

TyrantDesigner

Art! Hot and fresh.
I use 3m edge prep and edge sealer on just about every odd vinyl job I have. it's just a tool to add to the longevity of the material. Doesn't matter if it's digital, calendared or cast cut vinyl, reflective, wrapping vinyl, etc, etc.

3m has edge prep and edge sealer, edge prep is when you've cleaned the surface and you have grooves, recesses or channels that would cause any latent vinyl memory to rise out of ... it makes a tacky surface for the vinyl to stick better to. ... with that in mind as long as you heat the surface of the vinyl after stretching it into the channel you put the edge prep into to remove the memory and don't use it on intermediate vinyl ... never going to have an issue unless the surface was dirty, the paint comes off the vehicle (had that happen once) or the material is bad ... cough- avery -cough- ... edge sealer is the other wrapping liquid, it's the same as those edge sealing pens, just a canned version. the brush is crap though, so be prepared to have a throw away brush to make a clean edge. it's just for going over the edge of graphics so it stays in place .... you know, for those areas that are issue frought with pealing anyways ... like the inside of doors and graphics with large free cut tendrals. I wouldn't use sealer on straight paint ... but i've seen it done without issues later. I use both on almost all my digitally printed jobs that aren't going on a flat surface out of the way of major abrasion from wind and sand. Now worth it for rivets though ... too expensive for very little pay out. I even use this stuff on silly jobs like vehicle stripes in high performance vinyl. the couple brush strokes under the hood and trunk of the vehicles makes a world of difference a couple years out.

I mean hell, i've even had a few aluminum housings and computer cases that had curled edges (softer edge) and I used sealer on those too.
 
Mike Paul

Mike Paul

Super Active Member
Don't use an X-acto knife to release air bubbles, they make slits that tend to open up over time. Use a round pointed air release tool.
 
GAC05

GAC05

Quit buggin' me
Interesting experience with Primer 94/IJ180c.
We wrapped a fleet of fuel tankers in IJ180c/8519. They were a mix of old and new trucks some painted white and others raw aluminum.
We primed all the welds with the 94 as they wouldn't allow us to use any heat (other than the sun) on the tubes to set the vinyl.
When the trucks came back after several years for a change of design the wraps were in pretty good shape, except for the primed wields on the unpainted aluminum tankers.
The vinyl had lifted/bridged right to the edge of the area that had been primered.
Pulled the vinyl off and the primed area was still a little tacky.
Not sure what happened - we cleaned them well - going as far as a powerwash- acid wash- powerwash/degrease - final alcohol wipe down as we worked each panel.
The 94 was new - brought in for the project.
Since then I've backed off on using it on wraps we do on regular non commercial vehicles.

wayne k
guam usa
 
Jester1167

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
Don't use primer 94 with Oracal vinyl, 1 because it will fail prematurely and, 2 Oracal says explicitly not to use it with any of their products.

Poking the bubble with an air release tool is fine. Don't use an X-acto or knife.
 
Jester1167

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
GAC05 said:
Interesting experience with Primer 94/IJ180c.
We wrapped a fleet of fuel tankers in IJ180c/8519. They were a mix of old and new trucks some painted white and others raw aluminum.
We primed all the welds with the 94 as they wouldn't allow us to use any heat (other than the sun) on the tubes to set the vinyl.
When the trucks came back after several years for a change of design the wraps were in pretty good shape, except for the primed wields on the unpainted aluminum tankers.
The vinyl had lifted/bridged right to the edge of the area that had been primered.
Pulled the vinyl off and the primed area was still a little tacky.
Not sure what happened - we cleaned them well - going as far as a powerwash- acid wash- powerwash/degrease - final alcohol wipe down as we worked each panel.
The 94 was new - brought in for the project.
Since then I've backed off on using it on wraps we do on regular non commercial vehicles.

wayne k
guam usa
Click to expand...

Primer is not tacky. What happened is the adhesive separated from the vinyl and stayed stuck to the primer. Every time I do a removal I can see where primer was used because I have to clean all the adhesive off those areas. If you use primer use it sparingly. Check this video out.
 
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