App tape on wrap graphics?

That makes absolutely no sense. I would have them reprint it without app tape. Besides the fact that you won't be able to see what you're doing, the app tape won't allow you to conform the material... Horrible idea on a full panel.

 

may be they did not laminate the print

 

We were also surprised by this, but it was for a large semi trailer. We contacted the BIG print company and they informed us it was liquid laminated that is sprayed on. This was supposed to make it a quicker install. The hardest and longest part was removing the tape after install... should have been light tac. We had to soak it with warm water and still work it around the rivets. Regular lam would have been better but guys who do massive amounts of fleets do prefer the liquid lam w/tape. Not us regular folks though.

 

The liquid lam process is cheaper. We don't do it here and have no interest in it, but we do install some that are supplied this way. It is also a bear to remove compared to regular vinyl/lam combos.

 

I installed a couple wraps on beverage trailers that were made the same way. It was IJ180 with liquid overlaminate and app tape. Guess it's a whole lot cheaper for those big print houses to do it that way than just to do a film overlaminate with no app tape. Install wasn't too bad but I didn't have too many rivets to work with..... just a bunch of door slats and protruding post between the doors.

 

Especially the additional cost of labor when it comes time to remove them. We had areas that needed removed after trimming that were just lightly tacked down and the vinyl just wanted to chip away in small pieces like reflective.

 

I wrapped a bunch of vans for Safety Kleen, and they provided the wraps. ALL of them like this. You just have to lay as much flat parts as you can, then when you get to a curve, peel off the tape to expose the vinyl. The nice thing with these was that they had them all cut to shape of doors, panels, etc, with handles and trim and lights all cut out already. Made them fairly simple, minus the curved parts where you had to peel the tape.