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This is going to sound ridiculous, but can I just buy a roll of plain white vinyl wrap and use it on my caravan? Is it a DIY-able job? The top and sides are basically flat panels, only the front and back are shaped.
Yes and yes, but it's not as easy as it looks.
Lol yes I imagine it would be a right nightmare. Maybe easier than a car, being flat, and the fact I can lift up the edges of the window seals and so on; but you'd need reeeeally big pieces which could be a right disaster.
Is it just sticky-backed plastic? Or is there heat guns and things involved?
Why just go for white Molls….
If you do give it a go, can you live-stream it please so we can all watch?
I’ve watched a professional wrap a van and it looks difficult, difficult, lemon difficult
Or I could just paint it with rollers.
If you do give it a go, can you live-stream it please do we can all watch?
Yes, I might, I'm well aware of the potential for hilarity 🙂
Watch some youtube videos of the pros doing it and see how easy it looks.
I've tried to do a car bonnet before with a mate. It was easy in the sense that we used proper air-release vinyl to reduce bubbling and you can lift it and reposition it as much as you want before you press it down to fix it. It was very difficult in that the techniques required for lifting and precisely stretching and flexing to constantly get rid of creases takes a long time to learn.
Even with a relatively flat panel, probably the easiest part of a car you can do apart from the roof, it looked a bit crap in the end.
I'd give it a go on a flat caravan though. Get the right material, it's definitely not just sticky back plastic.
Please take pictures and post them on here.
Before.
During.
After.
...and after you have paid a pro to do it.
I wrapped some old cupboard doors, was easy, came out better than expected and lasting well. Was probably heavier grade than car wrap + flat surface which may help.
Honestly, don’t even think about it! For the last year my job was applying the vinyl livery decals to driving school cars, specifically AA and BSM cars, and to do one properly, without getting bits of dust, or creases, I would reckon on three a day, maximum, and that’s applying relatively small, pre-cut decals. I was working indoors, the cars were power-washed outside, squeegee’d off, then each area to have a decal wiped over with IPA/isopropyl alcohol, then sprayed with soapy water. Then the decal had half the backing sheet removed, the adhesive side sprayed with the soapy water, carefully turned around and the rest of the backing sheet removed and the rest of the adhesive side sprayed.
Then the decal was offered up to the panel, and moved around carefully to make sure it was centred as well as possible, before starting to squeegee the water and air-bubbles out, using squeegees with a synthetic felt along the edge, then a heat gun was used while getting the air-bubbles out completely. The biggest decal was across the bonnet of a Corsa, and to get the second half of the backing sheet off meant standing on the sheet, while pulling the decal upwards and spraying it. At the end, I was holding the decal as high off the floor as I could, and the bottom corner was barely centimetres from the floor, and I’m about 6’. The slightest dust particles would show up like a large zit, and be difficult to remove, and bubbles the same, needing a needle point to puncture the vinyl while heating it.
The heat guns I used were industrial ones, set at 350°, and melting the vinyl is very easily done, as is burning yourself. It hurts, a lot.
The other thing is, the vinyl doesn’t really last very long, it weathers, it’s affected by UV, and it shrinks quite dramatically - cars would come in sometimes to have a decal replaced, and even after only a few months the decals had shrunk by several millimetres, showing a grubby line around the edge where the adhesive was left behind.
After a year, I was just about confident I was getting reasonably good at doing the job; there is no way I’d ever consider doing a full wrap!
Just don’t.
Oh, btw, we weren’t using air-release vinyl, because the decals were printed on fairly thin vinyl, but the colour layers plus a clear top layer made it pretty thick, and difficult to work around the curves of a car body - certainly, most ‘vans are fairly flat, but you’re going to be dealing with square metres of thin, expensive vinyl, that will flap around and be extremely difficult to manipulate.
It’s also worth mentioning that professionals take off everything, like door mirrors, handles, bumpers etc, so the wrap can be folded around the edges, and windows have to have the vinyl pushed behind the frame, to avoid water creeping underneath and causing it to lift off.
I'd give it a go, I've done big building windows and sliding doors with window tint film which is a similar concept except you don't use soapy water with vinyl wrap.
I wouldn't expect it to look good first time though.
And any imperfections of the underlying paint will show through. If it's chipped, deeply scratched, blistered etc you will have to sand them down, high build filler, sand, etc before wrapping. It's basically the same amount of effort as a re-spray.
Here’s a couple of cars I did, the Puma had updated livery, which was simpler, but the AA logo on the rear door was a royal pain to do, because it was two separate pieces, which had to be aligned, and the material was very thin, transparent, with a frosted surface. Very easy to tear, and the tiniest bubble or speck of dust would show.
Yeah what a good Friday afternoon this has turned out to be!
Molgrips is tinkering with something. **** Blinky.
I reckon 10pages. At least.
The question is why?
If the van is old then does it matter what it looks like.
If it's newish you could potentially knock a chunk of value off it.
And if you are going to wrap it, at least do something interesting! 🙂
As a colouring-in professional - vinyl is the a bloody nightmare. I only put it on flat sheets of board using a big laminator.
If you do decided to crack on then at least get some good stuff from Hexis or Metamark.
It's a caravan. They're all shit so just crack on.
How nice is your caravan? Could you just buy lots of white enamel put and put it on with a foam roller? Or be trendy and use U-Pol Raptor Liner in satin black or something.
Aren’t caravans white already? About a dozen magically appeared overnight on an old piece of wasteland near us. Every single one was white.
I mean what’s the point of going to all that effort, erm… I mean… piece of piss job, go for it! when it’s just going to look the same. I’d go for street camo, dazzle ship, or shark. Or, considering how much they seem to anger other road users, you could wrap it red like a giant haemorrhoid.
A mate of mine bought an old caravan to take to Heavy Metal festivals instead of camping. He painted it matt black. Inside and out.
I’d go for street camo, dazzle ship, or shark.
Baby shark caravan!
White certainly sounds like a missed opportunity. Perhaps some kind of foliage pattern to make it look less like a big bit of tupperware?
periwinkle blue
Came here expecting this. I'm not disappointed.
Like bikes, I think a caravan should be bold in colour.
Gold?
Aren’t caravans white already?
Most new smart ones are, but my crappy old one is beige, and it looks shit now.
Plus the paint is now getting knackered and even though I'm not keeping it anywhere near a tree it grows black algae in a matter of weeks and makes it look grotty.
I reckon paint with a roller is the best option tbh.
I think this is your best option...
You need to be very skilled to do it to any decent standard, but if you want to give us all a laugh go for it. Just don't go thinking that flat panels are the easiest, they're not. A slightly curved panel in one direction (think of a huge diameter tube) is the easiest as you only have one dimension to worry about controlling.
If you do decided to crack on then at least get some good stuff from Hexis or Metamark.
I deliver reels of the stuff with work, it's vitally important you get the right stuff for the surface you're working with! It's also chuffing expensive.
I did wrap a fatbike frame a few years back. The advantage is that there are no massive panels, so I was dealing with quite small sections of vinyl. However, there are so many intricate shapes to stretch around that it was never a perfect finish. Before I sold it, I removed all the wrap, leaving the original frame colour, so there's a potential benefit in that too.
Most of the shitty yellowish taxis you see in Germany are wrapped. A place next to one of my customers workshops does it.
They sh*it themselves about dust entering their workshop.
You need to be very Zen and have a good work flow with your helper..
Was tempted to get the van wrapped in some garish colour, really just to protect the paintwork, but since I didn't get it wrapped and have been down some very narrow, bushy and scratchy paths it's not worth it....
First things first, my company wrap commercial vehicles. If someone came in with a knackered caravan and asked us to wrap it I’d would decline if the paint is knackered covering it in vinyl isn’t going to make it look ANY better. It’s only as good as the surface you apply it too.
Where are you going to do this wrap?
We don’t wrap anything outside our own workshop. If we can’t control the environment where we fit, we don’t do it. On your drive? No way.
Materials cost? £29-30/linear m at 1.5m wide. (What it cost us btw)
Cheap option, no.
Here is one we did earlier this year. Just did the second one for the same customer. That is 30+ linear m. It took two skilled fitters 5 days. It’s a white truck btw. SANY Renault
Most new smart ones are, but my crappy old one is beige, and it looks shit now.
"now"? 😁
^^reminds me of the 7.5 tonne box truck my mate borrowed.
Truck was due to be on a roadshow throughout Germany. It along with other US pickups had been covered in wraps with fitness first branding. The trick had a sleeping cabin newly installed (and wrapped).
Boss was too stingy to hire a truck for a small shop fitting job a few 00km away. Instead of 90€ for day matey drove the newly liveried truck (and me) to the job site. Just after parking, whilst sat in the truck with the engine running he gets a phone call.... About two seconds later the Polizei are knocking on the window... Blah blah... On the whilst whilst in control of a vehicle. 60€.
Few hours later he goes off to pick up some of the furniture.
He phones me up (whilst driving) and asks about xyz when suddenly he stops and I hear a crashing sound. Lots of fs. He's dropped his phone. Minute later he's found his phone and I can hear is whelps and screams.
He's driven the 3.5m high truck under a bridge with 3.3-4m clearance... He was beside himself....
Got pictures of the two sides and the crumpled roof, plus the sleeping cabin that was destroyed. However, point of the story... The wrap held the fragments of the cabin together remarkably well.
Was a long day with an overnight in Nürnberg.
Mollimize
I thought caravans just had the plastic wrap inside on all the furniture?
Lots of handy suggestions here, all of which drastically improve the look of the caravan
How nice is your caravan?
This question makes no sense. Caravans aren't nice.
They aren't nice until one ends up ill for a few years and needs a 'home for home' holiday. Then caravans are perfect.
Home comforts, doing what you want, when you want and the caravan doesn't have to be huge or towed by the lastest earth destroying monster truck.
I'm not a big caravan fan but getting more mellow as I get older plus 3 years of Covid induced fatigue I'm warming to Bunnyhops reasoning.
They are often pretty ugly though. The painted ones on the previous page are an improvement IMO.
The painted ones on the previous page are an improvement IMO.
And now this comment makes no bloody sense.
I thought caravans just had the plastic wrap inside on all the furniture?
Eh?
This question makes no sense. Caravans aren’t nice.
Also eh? Everyone on here loves campervans. Caravans are the same, made by the same people often, but the engine is in a separate vehicle.
Are we missing a page? 🤔 😂
Half a dozen posts were deleted.
What for? Hate speech against caravans?
Not getting into another ‘free speech’ debate..
@zilog. Yes, mols tried to stick it on, a gust of wind came along and now it’s all screwed up in a ball in the bin.
slowol - If you are suffering from long covid then consider a caravan. You can take them out into the countryside ( certificated locations sites), with just the basic facilities (running water), then have a restful holiday. Cooking what you need, when you need it, sleeping when you need to, taking as much or as little gear/stuff that you need.
I was not a fan of caravans at all until being poorly with fatigue syndrome. Buying a caravan was perfect for that time in my life.
If it doesn't work out for you then sell it.
Sorry Molly for hijacking your thread.