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Vinyl Wrap...

Piper J3

Well Known Member
I bought my 12 from the original builder three years ago with 48TT and now have 440TT. I absolutely love the airplane. Parts of the plane were left bare aluminum - stabilator, fwd portion of vertical fin, and top of turtle deck. Two years ago I vinyl wrapped the stabilator with 3M 1080 Gloss White and it turned out great. Easy to keep clean and very durable.

Now I'm doing same treatment to the vertical fin and turtle deck. I'm tired of polishing aluminum - very dirty process. This time I chose 3M 1080 Gloss White Aluminum vinyl. 5'x10' piece cost $105 on eBay including shipping.







 
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The film is very easy to work with once you learn techniques. I studied YouTube videos before first attempt and had success right out of the box. 3M 1080 is micro-porous and lets trapped air escape ? this lets the film lay down smooth and conform to contours without wrinkles. I have seen videos of vinyl wrap on wheel pants and cowlings using a heat gun to help stretch the material. The technique for the rivets is to prick a small hole at the edge of the rivet flange using a pin. Smooth the vinyl around the rivet with your fingernails allowing air to escape from the pin hole. When the adhesive sets up the film is no longer porous and the pin holes heal over.

I would consider wrapping an entire airplane Vs. paint. I?m not much of an artist, but with the huge variety of colors ? neon, gloss, matt, simulated carbon-fiber, etc., some really cool stuff can be accomplished. You can easily wrap a plane in your workshop, at your own pace, and even do partial components as construction continues. Real boost to the building process if you can see some parts with finished color as your pulling the remaining 5000 rivets?
 
The film is very easy to work with once you learn techniques. I studied YouTube videos before first attempt and had success right out of the box. 3M 1080 is micro-porous and lets trapped air escape ? this lets the film lay down smooth and conform to contours without wrinkles. I have seen videos of vinyl wrap on wheel pants and cowlings using a heat gun to help stretch the material. The technique for the rivets is to prick a small hole at the edge of the rivet flange using a pin. Smooth the vinyl around the rivet with your fingernails allowing air to escape from the pin hole. When the adhesive sets up the film is no longer porous and the pin holes heal over.

I would consider wrapping an entire airplane Vs. paint. I?m not much of an artist, but with the huge variety of colors ? neon, gloss, matt, simulated carbon-fiber, etc., some really cool stuff can be accomplished. You can easily wrap a plane in your workshop, at your own pace, and even do partial components as construction continues. Real boost to the building process if you can see some parts with finished color as your pulling the remaining 5000 rivets?
How well does it cover underlying colors? I.e., does it have to go over white or single color?
 
How well does it cover underlying colors? I.e., does it have to go over white or single color?

It's pretty opaque. We've used white and black metallic over bright yellow on our -12, there's no trace of the original color showing through.
 
How well does it cover underlying colors? I.e., does it have to go over white or single color?

I defer to Dale. I have only applied over bare aluminum.

Dale - did you use 3M 1080 Vinyl Wrap? Supposed to be best quality...
 
I defer to Dale. I have only applied over bare aluminum.

Dale - did you use 3M 1080 Vinyl Wrap? Supposed to be best quality...
We've used both the 3M and another brand. There isn't a noticeable difference between them as far as application, durability, and coverage.
 
What is your process...or the preferred process for cleaning the aluminum prior to a vinyl application? Did you use the cutting tape for your edges where it butts up to a boundary or paint?

What about anywhere that there are screws...like the fuel tanks. How do you handle those areas?

Different estimates say that the weight savings is in the neighborhood of half the weight of paint. Do you find that to be the case?

Thx
 
What is your process...or the preferred process for cleaning the aluminum prior to a vinyl application? Did you use the cutting tape for your edges where it butts up to a boundary or paint?

What about anywhere that there are screws...like the fuel tanks. How do you handle those areas?

Different estimates say that the weight savings is in the neighborhood of half the weight of paint. Do you find that to be the case?

Thx

If aluminum is new I would just wipe with solvent. My aluminum is oxidized and dirty so I use Scotch-Brite pad and then alcohol wipe.

I use 3M Knifeless tape for butt splices and very carefully use an Exact #11 to trim against existing paint edge.

I haven't done screws yet but I will when I done screwed-on fairing at base of vertical fin leading edge. I guess I'll have to experiment.

I have no data on weight comparison other than what I have read which indicates vinyl is parity or slightly less than paint.

A point worth mentioning is that damage to vinyl can be repaired by placing a patch over affected area with exact color match.
 
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This time I chose 3M 1080 Gloss White Aluminum vinyl. 5'x10' piece cost $105 on eBay including shipping.

Jim - your post has been an excellent memory-jogger for me - thank you.

I'm curious... what is the difference between Gloss White and Gloss White Aluminum vinyl? There's something here that I'm just not "getting".

The aluminum parts of our aircraft are bare aluminum. I'd like to say polished aluminum but that would be a bit of a stretch. If going with vinyl I was thinking of gloss white and then gloss black for the wing leading edges to improve visibility of the aircraft when flying. Then I read your post and saw Gloss White Aluminum and suddenly went stupid!

Thanks again for your helpful comments.
 
Jim - your post has been an excellent memory-jogger for me - thank you.

I'm curious... what is the difference between Gloss White and Gloss White Aluminum vinyl? There's something here that I'm just not "getting"

Your best bet might be to order 3M Vinyl 1080 Scotchprint Series Car Wrap Film Color Selector Sample Book. $22.13
+ $4.65 Shipping on eBay.

Gloss White is Gloss White. Gloss White Aluminum is very near unpolished aluminum. Sample book is actual samples cut from roll material, so no guess work...
 
This is a subject I've been pondering as I get near the end of my build and am seriously considering vinyl wrapping the whole plane. Hopefully you guys with vinyl wrap experience can answer a couple of my nagging questions.

#1 Jim answered regarding repairs - apply color matching patch over damage. Got it.

#2 Will one be able to see any cracks in the aluminum under the vinyl? Thinking about some of the SBs that have come out and wondering how difficult it would be to inspect for cracks?

#3 Once the vinyl has been applied for some time, like years, is it easil removed if one wanted to revert to paint in some ares?

#4 If a skin needs to be replaced, can one simply cut the vinyl along the seams of the skin to remove and replace the skin or does the entire sheet of vinyl that covers the area need replacing?

#5 Can the entire plane really be vinyl wrapped? Thinking about oddly contoured areas such as the cavity where the canopy struts nest, the prop spinner, getting into the control surface hinge areas. Or will some of these areas need to be left bare or painted?

#6 And can one assume less of the airplane needs to be dismantled for the application of vinyl if wrapping the entire plane than if painting?

Appreciate benefiting from some of your experiences in this area.
 
I’d like to clarify what I believe to be an error.

3M 1080 is NOT porous. At the factory, the adhesive is laid down lengthwise on the back in microscopic rows. In your shop, the vinyl gets squeegeed down on the plane’s surface and the trapped air easily finds its way to the end of the sheet along these rows. Of course it’s best to start in the middle of a section and work the air towards the ends. It’s very easy. In fact as you stroke the vinyl with the squeegee, any air bubbles seem to just disappear. Ideally (at least in theory) and with some heat and enough pressure, the rows of adhesive are completely squished to remove all trapped air between the rows of adhesive. The final surface is much smoother than paint, absolutely no orange peel or dust as with paint.

I agree with a little prick of a pin around any raised head rivets helps. I believe the prick is completely filled/closed afterward. Time will tell. 4 years now, 250+ hrs so far. Holding up very well so far. Always hangared.

Bevan

wkjp1y.jpg

The white on the fibreglass parts is paint, matched to the vinyl. The rest (metallic black and gloss white) are is all 3M 1080 vinyl. All rights reserved
 
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Your best bet might be to order 3M Vinyl 1080 Scotchprint Series Car Wrap Film Color Selector Sample Book. $22.13
+ $4.65 Shipping on eBay.

Gloss White is Gloss White. Gloss White Aluminum is very near unpolished aluminum. Sample book is actual samples cut from roll material, so no guess work...

Thanks, Jim - that's exactly the answer I was looking for!
 
Being a vinyl skeptic early on, I looked closely at N35PM three years in a row at Oshkosh. Still looked great after the third year. I have some vinyl on my 12, notably the forward fuse skin, front of the vertical stab, and the access panels on the belly. Earlier this year we had some additional trim and striping work done by a sign shop that does a lot of vinyl wrap work on cars and trucks.

The vinyl will scuff and get worn where there is contact, like under the front edge of the canopy in our case and under the tail edge of the slider on N35PM. Since it's hidden, I just leave it scuffed.

The access covers have not held up well. Tough to keep edges intact, and there's enough oil seepage that the vinyl has peeled up. No big deal; it takes very little time to pull the vinyl off, wipe them down with solvent and re-wrap, then they're good for another couple of years.

Screws... if they're non-countersunk screws, use nylon washers. IF they're countersunk screws, you can get countersunk washers or just accept that the vinyl is going to wrinkle a little when you snug down the screw.

And no, the vinyl is most definitely not porous, but as already noted there are little micro-channels in the adhesive for bleeding out air as it's applied. You'll still need a needle or something for non-flush rivets.
 
Looks nice, Jim!

Did you fill the rivets in the close-up shot before applying the vinyl?

No, no prep at all. Small pin hole at OD of rivet head to vent trapped air and then work film to the bottom edge of the rivet head using plastic thin edge of squeegee. Does nice job...
 
Almost done. I used stainless steel conical washers under the flathead screws to prevent distortion of the film. Worked a charm...







 
Vinyl Is The Way To Go

I purchased my 6A a little over two years ago. Good build but terrible paint. I got a quote from a paint shop for roughly $15k. Called a local sign company that also did car wraps and ended up with a very good (but not perfect) wrap for a bit over $3k.

Two years and nearly 200 hours on, I'm still very happy with the wrap. The "wrapper" was not familiar with airplanes, so there are a few spots - for example, the complex set of curves around the air intake on the cowl - that I've had to re-do. But all the flat surfaces - wings, fuselage, empennage - look great and have been 100% maintenance free.

Oh, the wrap-job added about 10 pounds to the airplane. I did not strip the old paint first. I suspect that if I had, N101PR would actually have been lighter after the strip / wrap. In retrospect, I should have stripped it down to bare aluminum - the original paint was basically a couple of coats of rattle-can Krylon.

One last plus for the wrap. The $15k paint job would have been after an 8 month weight and would have had me down for 4 - 6 weeks. The wrap was completed in about 3 days.
 
Protecting the material from scuffs during installation

I learned a trick for how to protect vinyl wrap from squeegee scuff marks during installation. It?s actually used in brass instrument dent repair where they drag a magnet along the outside of the pipes on the instrument. With vinyl wrapping, the scuffing may not be as evident on lighter colors, but it will show up easily in the sun on darker colors or printed designs.

Use a clear plastic drum head (12? or 14?) and lay it over the area you are smoothing out. It allows you to hold the drum head in one place and drag the squeegee without actually having the vinyl get scuffed because you are not (technically) moving the squeegee on the vinyl.

You can also use heat on the drum head to more uniformly heat the vinyl to get it around bends. I haven?t tried this around rivets yet but it works well on large areas.
 
I purchased my 6A a little over two years ago. Good build but terrible paint. I got a quote from a paint shop for roughly $15k. Called a local sign company that also did car wraps and ended up with a very good (but not perfect) wrap for a bit over $3k.

Can you show us a photo of what $3K wrap job looks like? How many colors and how intricate the design?
 
Did you do any special prep on the fiberglass? Just wondering about the relative adhesion of the vinyl on fiberglass & aluminum.
 
Adhesion doesn't seem to be a problem, but you'll be surprised at what will show through the vinyl if it's not perfectly smooth. You'll need to prep the fiberglass for vinyl just like you would paint, perfectly smooth.
 
Huh

I learned a trick for how to protect vinyl wrap from squeegee scuff marks during installation. It?s actually used in brass instrument dent repair where they drag a magnet along the outside of the pipes on the instrument. With vinyl wrapping, the scuffing may not be as evident on lighter colors, but it will show up easily in the sun on darker colors or printed designs.

Use a clear plastic drum head (12? or 14?) and lay it over the area you are smoothing out. It allows you to hold the drum head in one place and drag the squeegee without actually having the vinyl get scuffed because you are not (technically) moving the squeegee on the vinyl.

You can also use heat on the drum head to more uniformly heat the vinyl to get it around bends. I haven?t tried this around rivets yet but it works well on large areas.

You mean the music instrument, drum head right?

Great tip, thanks.
 
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