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3m r221

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tylercrum

New Member
Hello all!
We recently acquired a new account thanks to another local wrap shop who seriously screwed up a bunch of wraps (roughly 150!). They used a cheap laminate which burned off rather quickly (6 months or so) and the vinyl was left to burn and char to the car. Removal is of course an absolute nightmare and we've tried to just about everything. I've heard from a few places that 3m r221 is what I should be using to help in the removal process but can't find anyone that sells it for the life of me. Anyone know where I might be able to get my hands on some?
thanks!
 
HulkSmash

HulkSmash

New Member
tylercrum said:
Hello all!
We recently acquired a new account thanks to another local wrap shop who seriously screwed up a bunch of wraps (roughly 150!). They used a cheap laminate which burned off rather quickly (6 months or so) and the vinyl was left to burn and char to the car. Removal is of course an absolute nightmare and we've tried to just about everything. I've heard from a few places that 3m r221 is what I should be using to help in the removal process but can't find anyone that sells it for the life of me. Anyone know where I might be able to get my hands on some?
thanks!
Click to expand...

Never heard of it.

But try something called Rapid Remove. Your local sign supply shop should have it.
 
cdiesel

cdiesel

New Member
Will it attack the paint too then?

We had to use a bunch of Xylene the other day.. I got high just going in the back for a few minutes. Nasty stuff.
 
CheapVehicleWrap

CheapVehicleWrap

New Member
Never heard of it either. 150 screwed up wraps eh? Seems someone might be going out of business soon. Stuff like that certainly doesn't help the wrap industry.

Nipples should ALWAYS be grown in pairs. I don't care what anyone says.
 
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tylercrum

New Member
Yeah we've tried Rapid Remover. We've tried Vinyl-off, Rapid Remover, Xylene, Acetone, Denatured, Isopropyl...etc. Everything except gasoline and a match, which I'm still waiting on customer approval for.:banghead:

We're currently using GROG and it works ok....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jILw0WcZxMU
The only problem is that the GROG is very tedious considering we have to do the hood, roof, top of the trunk, the tops of all the doors and the top edges all the way down the sides. I've got 8 cars coming next week and was really hoping to find something that didn't take a full 2 days of scraping to work.

It's also probably important to mention that the paint underneath the vinyl is absolutely ruined regardless of how we get the vinyl off. The first one we did took me and another guy 4 days to unwrap using no chemicals or anything, just our fingernails and scrapers and the paint chipped and peeled off like it had been soaked in aircraft stripper. (customer informed me before we started that he was aware the paint was ruined, and all proper cover my rear-end agreement/contract/paperwork has been signed, attorneys present)

The 3m R221 is what is in all 3m bulletins under the removal section as the recommended product for vinyl removal. I've been told by a couple folks in another forum that it's the stuff I need to be using, but so far no one's been able to tell me where to get it. Got a call in to my 3m rep to see what he can come up with...

(And yes I know that it would be more effective and less of a headache for everyone if my client would just take them to a body shop....)

And yeah, the yokel who did the wraps previously is definitely out of business...especially considering this was his main account....
 
ProWraps

ProWraps

New Member
please post up if you find it and let us know how it works. im sure there are many of us that would love to know both.
 
CheapVehicleWrap

CheapVehicleWrap

New Member
WOW again!

Taking it to a body shop is only pushing the same problem/solution onto someone else.
How will these be re-wrapped over ruined paint?
How the heck did the paint get ruined!?!?

If this were only a few vehicles you'd be best to walk. But a rough estimation of this possibly being well over a half million dollar job does warrant further research into making this happen.
 
National Sign Co. - Print

National Sign Co. - Print

Merchant Member
You can buy direct from 3m. It will only ship ground and it is in 5 gallon drums. Yes it will rip paint off also if not used as specified.

As stated before super gnarly shit...

Many car body shops use it to thin out body filler.
 
National Sign Co. - Print

National Sign Co. - Print

Merchant Member
Never have I heard of removals being as difficult as the OP indicates. Did they use super glue instead of P94?

If all the vinyl removers on the market do not work. I would pass on the project all together..

Damn 150 units as claimed is gonna be a bitch let alone making sure new graphics will not fail after all that effort getting the old off.

My 2 cents is to run away as fast as you can...
 
cdiesel

cdiesel

New Member
We've had a few that took 20-30 man hours to remove. 90% of that time was spent on the hoods & roofs. However, these wraps were five + years old in Phoenix. Scraped and scraped, with the paint underneath having the image ghosted in as well as the wrinkles and cracks from the vinyl permanently etched into the paint.

We had another job to rewrap the hood and roof on a car that was previously wrapped by a national company (three years earlier, under warranty??!!??). They gave a budget of $250 to remove & install. I told them we'd call them when we hit $250 on the removal. We got about 3/4 of the way through the hood in four hours. They said that was outrageous and told us to just wrap over the vinyl on the roof.

If you choose to pursue this job, I'd do one of two things: hire some temporary help to do the removals, as it's not important if the paint is damaged. They'll most likely need to be repainted to get a warranty on the new wrap anyways. Or, just send them straight to a body shop who can use the appropriate strippers & repaint as needed.
 
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tylercrum

New Member
The previous company used MacTac for these wraps. They must have gotten a bad batch of laminate from what I'm told. These wraps have only been on these cars anywhere between 12-24 months.
Spoke with one of the product specialist type folks from 3m at our local Grimco the other day, and he said that what happens is the laminate breaks down in the sun (rather quickly in this case, more than likely because there was something wrong with the batch of laminate they got), and when the laminate breaks down, it releases a gas that reacts with the vinyl. So the burning is (mostly) coming from the laminate releasing these gases or whatever, coupled with the ridiculous sun here in Texas and boom, you get a completely brown car. I'm told that MacTac stood up and did the right thing, reimbursing the other guys with enough material to replace all the cars and then some, and reimbursing them for the labor....then poof, he's gone...
These are ford focuses, and from what I can tell, and what my folks at Ford have said, these particular models were painted with and "all-in-one" paint job, meaning there's primer, paint, and clear coat all in one shot. That, plus what the 3m guy told me, I'm not surprised at all that the paint's having a hard time.
I seriously thought about passing it up, but I got two kids with one on the way, and they want me to figure it out. haha
Like I said, I got a call in to our 3m rep, so we'll see what he can come up with.
 
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tyzero

New Member
I wish you the best of luck with removal.

I had to remove a wrap on a dodge 3500 van one time that was parked next to a dumpster that caught on fire. Every inch of vinyl was scorched. Last ditch effort we used a eraser wheel to remove it. Burned through 5 wheels and 2 solid days.
 
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