"MonkeePuzzle" (monkeypuzzle)
04/01/2019 at 11:25 • Filed to: None
12
9|
"MonkeePuzzle" (monkeypuzzle)
04/01/2019 at 11:25 • Filed to: None | 12
| 9 |
A friend had a piece of chrome break on his trim, and we tried vinyl wrapping to cover it up. I’ll kick things off with a finished pic to entice #clicks #content
I had never wrapped anything so small and with such tight curves, and thought it would be a fun challenge. Replacing the broken trim piece was going to be $250 from VW because it includes the whole piece with buttons included. It’s a common piece to break (the chrome on plastic chips and lifts off) so VW forums suggested buying the cheap imitation piece from China for ~$35 and just take the chrome trim and put in on the genuine VW piece. So with a worst case scenario of putting out $35 (and waiting 8 weeks for china delivery) we proceeded
first I tried candy style red spray over the chrome. you can see the damaged chrome at the top of the piece. It’s location meant that as you tried to get things out of the cubby in front of the shifter this razor sharp chrome would slice your finger
the candy spray was t oo orange, and would be hard to blend after fixing and filling the damage, so we decided to go vinyl.
Testing first on the good condition piece of chrome that’s on the cubby door
lay if on big, heat and let it lay into the curves and crevices, heat and push into crevices and pull over the corner s and curves
hmm, ok, I def messed up those corners. RETRY! :D
much better
ok, onto the broken piece.
first I peeled back the flaking chrome piece until it had a good edge. filled with a plasti-metal filler. Then sanded smooth. May not look smooth, but it was perfectly smooth
lay it on big, heat and let it conform on its own
pulled down the outside edges, and trim.
heat and push the interior corner in as much as possible, then cut the relieve the tension.
then shape it into the interior corners and trim
looking good, and still fits. there was a slight concern that it might be too tight with the layer of vinyl, but it is very thin. And the vinyl didnt pull up at the edges when pushed into place. Pretty happy.
fitting well with the cubby in place.
I think these two pictures highlight how hard it is to photograph, but the colour matches the existing red stitching and trim far better than it appears.
Likely we’ll see how it holds up to some daily use and abuse, and possible do some more of the chrome trim to match. Or maybe not, because sometimes too much accent makes it a feature not an accent.
Boxer_4
> MonkeePuzzle
04/01/2019 at 11:37 |
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I can honestly say I don’t miss the lousy trim quality from VW. Our old B5.5 Passat was not great in this regard.
jminer
> MonkeePuzzle
04/01/2019 at 11:39 |
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That is fantastic! I need to experiment more with Vinyl. My wife lives her car, but hates the boring pearl white it is. I’m not much better and don’t love my black wagon. Some colored accents would help spice it up and be better than stickers.
Now a dumb question, where do you buy vinyl wrap?
CalzoneGolem
> MonkeePuzzle
04/01/2019 at 11:39 |
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That looks great! Well done.
Tripper
> MonkeePuzzle
04/01/2019 at 11:40 |
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obamanotbad.jpg!
MM54
> MonkeePuzzle
04/01/2019 at 11:48 |
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That turned out very well, nicely done!
I’ve been vaguely toying with the idea of vinyl, but on a larger scale (since the RX7 desperately needs painted, but the time and effort for a fresh coat of “nap time silver” gives me pause). Not sure how you’d handle the body moldings in such a situation, but it’s not likely to happen (and if so, it’s a long ways off).
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MonkeePuzzle
> jminer
04/01/2019 at 12:07 |
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amazon.
or direct from the company. I signed up with vvivid vinyl and they are constantly emailing me 20% off codes.
If you email any of the big companies
they will send you sample pieces (likely just off cuts, so free to them) for free or very cheap so you can confirm colours and durability which I did with my last project car
https://oppositelock.kinja.com/6-month-vinyl-wrap-test-summary-1823083978
Long_Voyager, Now With More Caravanny Goodness
> MonkeePuzzle
04/01/2019 at 12:17 |
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NICE WORK!
Looks fantastic.
sn4cktimes
> MonkeePuzzle
04/01/2019 at 15:59 |
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Looks good. If you wanted to keep the chrome look could you have done a vinyl chrome? Or would it look too “off” compared to the stock parts?
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MonkeePuzzle
> sn4cktimes
04/01/2019 at 16:01 |
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it is a sorta chrome red vinyl, which is part of why its so hard ot photograph