Requesting vinyl wrapping tips

First, this is not intended to start a vinyl war. Let's not get into the pros and cons of vinyl or paint.

Does anyone have tips on the process specific to Vans RVs? Photos or videos would be great too.
The exterior skins of my bird are Alodined for some weightless protection under the vinyl.
You Tube videos are helpful, but they are mostly auto specific.

How have others applied the vinyl to their RV?
For example on the wings, did you apply a full 5' wide section to the wing with a seam somewhere around the leading edge? Or
Did you apply a section around the leading edge with the seams around the skin seam between leading edge/tank and aft skin? That seems like the best solution on wings. It does waste a bit but keeps the leading edge clean of seams.
The fuse seems logical to apply vinyl from the bottom aft moving forward but what have others done and why?
I know enough to apply the the vinyl to keep all seams from catching the wind and to keep water from running into a seam but some voices of experience would sure be nice.
Share please.

Sure would be nice to have a "Vinyl Wrap" forum. Hint! Hint!

I just wrapped my wings, and I'm not really happy with the result. I tried wrapping the fuel tank off of the wing and then installing it. This turned out better than wrapping the wing in place, but the screws twisted the vinyl as they seated against the skin.

On the second wing I wrapped the tank in place over the screw heads. No good way to get rid of bubbles around the screws.

Both tanks now have blisters in them after a trip out west at flights above 10,500ft.

Probably a lot of techniques that I just haven't mastered - it definitely isn't as easy as it looks.

Don

You're on the right track Larry. I wrapped the wings with a lengthwise seam along the bottom forward of the spar if I recall.

The bottom aft wing gets done first with a strip of knifeless tape to make a nice forward edge. Then I put another strip of knifeless tape on that vinyl, 1/2" aft of the forward edge. The top then gets wrapped beginning at the trailing edge. Work the material around the leading edge and past the knifeless tape on the bottom. You'll need a couple helpers for these large sections. Once it's all squeegee'd tight, pull the knifeless tape and heat the edge with the heat gun as you squeegee it down and you'll have a perfect, aft facing 1/2" overlap seam.

Where the vinyl comes to the trailing edge, I left it 1/4" long and folded it under with heat. To cut it, I used a 1/2" X 24" steel ruler stuck to the sticky side of the vinyl with its edge along the edge of the wing skin to use a cutting guide for a perfect cut.

You have the procedure correct for the fuselage being starting bottom aft. My first piece came up to the horizontal seam of the aluminum and got cut (With knifeless tape) right where the aluminum sheets overlap each other. This totally hide the vinyl seam.

Sorry no videos and few pictures. I was on the steep part of the learning curve and just trying to get the job done.

I have about 130Hrs on the plane now and I'm very happy with the vinyl. Its gets lots of compliments, many not even knowing it's not paint.

Bevan

Bevan, at the trailing edge of the wing did you wrap the vinyl around the edge that overlaps the flaps? Does it slide nicely on the flap without unrolling/binding/etc? I guess you wrapped the flaps, too, so this might put vinyl rubbing on vinyl in that location... Or did you put UHMW tape on top of the vinyl?

Yes, the vinyl is wrapped around the wing skin that overlaps the flaps. When the flaps move, there is evidence that some of the overlap touches the flap as is so common with RV's. I suppose I could put some anitchafe on there but the vinyl itself is kind like antichafe and is replaceable.

Last time I inspected that area, the vinyl is not rubbing so hard that it's cutting through or rolling it up off the bottom of the wing skin. It's vinyl rubbing on vinyl which is probably less damaging than an exposed aluminum edge skin rubbing on vinyl, or hard paint. Time will tell. So far so good.

Bevan

I believe doing this wrap around on trailing edge skins is important. I did not do this on my HS because I was worried the wrap-around would not stay in place properly. Thus, i just edge cut it. This is the result after all the recent CA rain.



I wrapped around part of the left side, which has stayed in place fine. I cleaned up the corrosion with wet sandpaper and repaired the edge with a wrap-around.

Also, a common concern was what happens if you get corrosion underneath the vinyl. Well, it is clearly visible, as you can see. All my other seams are fine. I think the trailing edges get the most turbulent air and gives the vinyl the highest chance of lifting and getting air/moisture exposure. Hence, the wrap-around is important.

jchang10 said:

I believe doing this wrap around on trailing edge skins is important. I did not do this on my HS because I was worried the wrap-around would not stay in place properly. Thus, i just edge cut it. This is the result after all the recent CA rain.

I wrapped around part of the left side, which has stayed in place fine. I cleaned up the corrosion with wet sandpaper and repaired the edge with a wrap-around.

Also, a common concern was what happens if you get corrosion underneath the vinyl. Well, it is clearly visible, as you can see. All my other seams are fine. I think the trailing edges get the most turbulent air and gives the vinyl the highest chance of lifting and getting air/moisture exposure. Hence, the wrap-around is important.

Click to expand...

Even if the vinyl doesn't terminate at a skin edge, as long as it terminates at something other than another piece of vinyl wont this still be a problem (the assembly not fully encapsulated), or is the thought that as long as it laps onto a primed surface that there wont be corrosion?
If that is the case, then anyone planning to use vinyl wrap should be careful with there choice of primer. Many of them wont prevent corrosion without being sealed/top coated by paint.

rvbuilder2002 said:

Even if the vinyl doesn't terminate at a skin edge, as long as it terminates at something other than another piece of vinyl wont this still be a problem (the assembly not fully encapsulated), or is the thought that as long as it laps onto a primed surface that there wont be corrosion?
If that is the case, then anyone planning to use vinyl wrap should be careful with there choice of primer. Many of them wont prevent corrosion without being sealed/top coated by paint.

Click to expand...

IMHO, the answer is it depends. I assume if the vinyl layer is air and water tight, it wont corrode. Same thing as paint. I do have some other edge cut vinyl, but they are not showing any signs. E.g. the side edges of my flaps, and ailerons are all exposed. Maybe I did a good job of primer coating those edges? Something about the airflow? Not sure.

Hi Jae, I have not seen any bubbling like that yet, but will watch closely now. I did not fold over everywhere either, but did use the 3-M pre-vinyl primer and then the seam seal. With my half vinyl half polished theme I have a lot of "open" edges on bare skin. Your coastal location is wetter than Oregon? Salt air? You fly more I am sure, mine is in a dry hangar...

Exterior treatment

Just another data point. I alodined the entire exterior and inside was primed P69G2.
I will lap the vinyl over the edges. I assume the corosion issue is no different than the same found on edges where the blue vinyl has lifted and allowed moisture to penetrate.
Please keep the tips coming till we get a "Vinyl" forum.

Wrapped Numbers

I wrapped my numbers but where the wrap went over the top of the joint between the lower fuselage skin and the upper fuselage skin I used a razor blade to make a slit. You can't see it. But the guy who sold me the wrap said I need to let out the air at places like seams or bumps where the wrap might not lie complete flat on the surface. He said there is no way to smash the wrap down into the corner good enough to prevent trapped air, so let it out with a slit.

BruceEicher said:

Hi Jae, I have not seen any bubbling like that yet, but will watch closely now. I did not fold over everywhere either, but did use the 3-M pre-vinyl primer and then the seam seal. With my half vinyl half polished theme I have a lot of "open" edges on bare skin. Your coastal location is wetter than Oregon? Salt air? You fly more I am sure, mine is in a dry hangar...

Click to expand...

Hi Bruce, i would definitely watch the trailing edges for sure. I definitely have other exposed edges which are fine so far.

Yes, even though i am hangared, i have to fly over the ocean every time i fly. It is bound to be a worst case scenario. Sigh!

If you're going to put it on, you might want to know how to take it off when it gets old. The vinyl you see being removed in videos is relatively fresh; no age, no sun, no problem. It's not so easy given enough time.

It typically takes the best part of two full work days to remove 6 year old vinyl wrap from two sides of a 14 foot truck box, or about 200 sq ft total. We do several a month, and have tried every method in the industry...heat (steam, flame, heat guns, etc), chemical (a half dozen or so), water blast (cold and hot), rubber wheels (good for old pinstripes), and combinations.

I've not yet found a truly paint-safe vinyl remover. Most of the time we stick a torpedo heater in under the back door. With the whole aluminum box at 140~150F, we can usually peel decent size pieces by hand, like 3 sq inches and up to a sq foot. However, sometimes all you get is thumbnail size bits before the vinyl tears, regardless of temperature or pull method. For those we heat the box as before, and blast it off with a kerosene-fired hot pressure washer at 170F.

The next step is removing the remaining adhesive, using a popular product (Rapid Tac's Rapid Remover) to melt it into something very similar to snot. It's scraped off the surface with a plastic tool before it dries, followed by a wash.

If anyone has better methods, believe me, I'm all ears, and would be very appreciative.

Removal

DanH said:

If you're going to put it on, you might want to know how to take it off when it gets old. The vinyl you see being removed in videos is relatively fresh; no age, no sun, no problem. It's not so easy given enough time.

It typically takes the best part of two full work days to remove 6 year old vinyl wrap from two sides of a 14 foot truck box, or about 200 sq ft total. We do several a month, and have tried every method in the industry...heat (steam, flame, heat guns, etc), chemical (a half dozen or so), water blast (cold and hot), rubber wheels (good for old pinstripes), and combinations.

I've not yet found a truly paint-safe vinyl remover. Most of the time we stick a torpedo heater in under the back door. With the whole aluminum box at 140~150F, we can usually peel decent size pieces by hand, like 3 sq inches and up to a sq foot. However, sometimes all you get is thumbnail size bits before the vinyl tears, regardless of temperature or pull method. For those we heat the box as before, and blast it off with a kerosene-fired hot pressure washer at 170F.

The next step is removing the remaining adhesive, using a popular product (Rapid Tac's Rapid Remover) to melt it into something very similar to snot. It's scraped off the surface with a plastic tool before it dries, followed by a wash.

If anyone has better methods, believe me, I'm all ears, and would be very appreciative.

Click to expand...

No tips but I do have several samples sitting in the sun at 8,000' just for that reason. The sun and UV is pretty intense up here. One is on bare aluminum. One on P60G2. One on Alodine. When the time comes to wrap, hopefully the samples will provide some insight.

Some years ago, it was all the rage with riveted airplanes to fill over the rivet holes with epoxy to get a really smooth skin. Then it came to light that such rivets would not show up if they came loose or started smoking. Vinyl would cover up problem rivets in the same way. Plus, as somebody else commented, there's the issue of screw heads, for later RVs have inspection panels on the wing undersurface and in the tail.

Somehow full-coverage vinyl doesn't seem like a good idea to me. In some areas, maybe, in some area, nah...

Ed

FWIW

I put the vinyl on each piece separately then assembled things. This way the screws for things like inspection panels and root fairings go through a hole poked through the vinyl. There's a bit a technique to get the vinyl to minimize twisting in the hole but it's not too bad. Paint isn't perfect either.

Bevan