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Hi, we're going to wrap this Carbon bonnet today,
And first of all I’ve cleaned it down with 3M solution just to make sure it will stick nicely.
This is a 3M print, a 3M I-J1080 with a matt laminate on it.
I'm just going to trim off any excess so that I can get to my corners abit better.
This will be a really rough video, so probably wont be a massive amount of talking.
I just want to get enough media out the way
so I know where I'm starting on this corner, and work up.
I'm trying not to use the heat-gun just yet if I can get away with it.
Just let the material fall onto the vehicle as best it can,
and then I can adjust it with the heat-gun if you really need to.
But it's best to let the material follow the natural curves of the car,
before you start manipulating it.
If you get to a point where you can't do any more then
use the heat-gun then, that's fine but the material is made to do that
It's just better if you can let it be as long as possible.
So I'm just using a combination of squidgy with a thin bit of felt on it
the other side of it sometimes just to push down harder with my thumb
Ok I've got to a point now there's a crease in the bonnet and I think I'm struggling just to get it to fold
So I'm going to use the heat-gun right now to help the wrap relax.
Basically you can push it so far but
I've just heated up there a little bit and then I can smooth that out nicely
So it's just kind of got a little bit complicated
and just the heat helps the material relax
It kind of goes back to its original position
and its just alot easier to work with.
Rather than using the heat-gun to stretch it
which obviously we all do when we first start wrapping
we're trying to let the material flow over the bonnet
and then let the heat-gun kind of return it back to its shape
You can see how I've kind of got a bit of bagging going on there
and I'm going to struggle to try and lay that down
So what I'm going to do is heat it up a little bit
and you will see how the material shrinks
and that means I can get a much better finish now
So we're now at a point where the bonnet goes in lots of different directions
So we're going to release a bit more graphic
So as you can see, we have kind of done the main flat pieces now.
We are just kind of coming up to the arches which is a bit more tricky
because we are bending that way, as well as that way
which is always a bit of a nightmare.
So I've kind of got my main plane, which I want to work away from
and I'm using the heat-gun just again just to reform it
once its kind of got abit, well it's created a few mountains and ridges
I can smooth it out with my thumb so far and then I need to kind of go back in with the heat-gun
re-settle it and then come back out agin
As you can see it's more of a tricky one now where it's bending out as well as over
There's always the temptation at this point to heat it really strong and pull it over the edge
but really it's kind of counter-productive in a way because eventually the material will
if you put it under too much strain it will either the print will start to degrade
in quality terms, or it will stretch back
and then obviously you've got to do the job again.
So you are always better to try and do it the hard way
which is just to let the material go down the way it wants to go down
so there is not as much stretch on the material
So I'm not stretching it at this point, I'm just heating it up
so it is really flexible at this point
but I don't want to pull it; I don't want to stretch it
I just want to get it back into some conformability there
So this is first time that we're actually going to use the heat-gun to basically cause it to stretch
because now the material is kind of a bit as you can see it's taught between the two there
Then it's got to go in as well as down
So what I'm going to do is just heat it up a bit and then work it down in a way, which is effectively stretching it
So just heat it in a circular motion around about the spot your going to stretch
because you’re going to need it all to stretch as nice and uniformly as possible
and then we're going to just move this down like that
so just sticking it to the table for the moment for ease
Having had a couple of different trainers on wrapping, I know there's quite a few different ways of wrapping.
and not all the techniques that I use will be the techniques that you'll of been taught
or you'll do yourself, but obviously you'll just work out what’s best for yourself really.
and essentially what's best for the job
because at the end of the day, that's what we are doing it for. It's for commercial gain
and if we've got to re-do the thing a few times that's not really helping your business.
and sometimes as well I find that it's actually better if you’re working on a piece and its getting abit frustrating
and you can't seem to get anywhere it's actually best to pull it back abit and just start again
and the beauty of this material is that it’s got that flexibility, it's just as good second or third time round
I sound like an advocate for 3M but it is pretty good stuff
Now if Avery wants to pay me to be their advocate obviously I'd be open to that as well.
Pretty much there now, all I need to do is trim up.
and in one sense you kind of feel like you've nearly finished but often this is the bit where it can all go wrong.
So it's obviously the best idea is to just take everything slow and progressively.
I've seen, you know, we've done vehicles before where we have stripped them for whatever reason
and seen people have cut in on the cars, have cut through onto the paintwork and stuff
so I'm always really hesitant when it comes to actually trimming onto a car
often maybe put a bit of masking tape down first to try and, or just break the surface of the laminate
and then break the surface of the thing if you really have to
As I say I've seen butchered jobs but I mean, just I'm going to cut out a bonnet catch here
and I know that, fortunately because I've go the other one at the other side I know that I can trim round the edge.
I've got a brand new blade, which is always the best way to start, and then basically I’ve just burred over the edge
so that I know its kind of going into the recess a little bit and then I'm just going to basically push the scalpel blade through
and then I'm going to hold it at an angle, and then just let it run, and then we will tidy up anything
so I'm not cutting onto the vehicle here, I'm actually using the edge of the vehicle to hold the scalpel away from the vehicle
Fortunately the graphic has some detail in there that kind of will help forgive some of the wobbly lines
but anything that's really obvious I will just go back and just kind of take off the edges really really thinly sliced
without hardly breaking the surface of the material
Coming around the edges I try and never cut away the graphic like this
I'll try and get it over the lip so that it's got something to hook onto
unfortunately this bonnet has a lip at the other side so I'm going to massage this all the way around
and then if this was actually on a car what I’d do is probably just pop the bonnet up and trim from underneath
obviously this being on the bench I can flip it over and I can trim nice and neatly.