0NF1R

as long as its not too windy...i did mine in a car port with mild wind gusts every now and then...from beginning to end, i found and remove maybe 4 grains of dirt...youll be fine but just be critical about it so you can do your absolute best...

East87

Gotcha. Good to hear.

By the way, you're talking to a guy who takes roughly six hours to detail his car. Wash, wax, vacuum, wheel polish, tire shine, glass treatment, leather care. Completely pristine inside and out... Like you've never seen a dealership car this clean, clean. Every 3-6 weeks.

What I'm saying is, I think I'm the right kind of person to be attempting this task.
AND I'M PUMPED

Thanks for the info guys!



Edit: 0NF1R, your stripes are SICK. Your car is one of the most recognizable on this forum. Great job!

0NF1R

thanks a lot man, any other questions feel free to post em up and youll get an answer in no time...gl!

East87

So I'm about 8 hours into the install...it's boiled over into tonight. I've got stripes on the roof, hood, spoiler, and 1/3 done the rear end (faux gas cap and 3rd brake light)

I've got a problem... I pulled the transfer tape off of the gas cap area on the trunk, and there are a TON of small bubbles. Before the stripes dried, I squeegeed the HELL out of that area, and it's still a mess! I've got a couple of big bubbles trapped in the interior of the section and many, MANY smaller bubbles in isolated areas more toward each side.

My question is, will the smaller bubbles actually go down per BSM's info sheet? If not, how can I get rid of them?
Also, how do I get rid of the bigger bubbles in the interior?
The stripes were all transfer-taped (NEVER AGAIN), so I imagine I've got a lot of bubbles still left on the roof and hood as those areas have not been de-transfer-taped yet.

Any help is appreciated.

PennState

sorry to hear that, i know the transfer tape is a pain in the ***, thats why we sell our vinyl stripes without the transfer tape, so that it makes an easier and painless install. Let us know the next time you need vinyl stripes. Also the small bubbles should be less noticeable after couple days, if not poke a small hole in them with a needle.

PennState

oh and post up some pictures when your done.

tx_zstang

I had a few small bubbles show up after getting all bubbles out to begin with with good even squeegie-ing. No big ones, though. The smaller ones went away once it dried after a few hours.
If you have big ones, and they couldn't get squeezed out, then you probably have it on slightly crooked or it wasn't clean in that area.

i was going to suggest to make sure you remove ALL the wax; dish soap is not good enough in most cases, unless maybe if you wash it a lot. I used Naptha to remove the wax and had no issues once things dried.

East87

Honestly, I don't know what the hell happened. I'm hoping a few hours in the sun will work wonders. The bitch of it is, ONLY that one trunk area is fouled up. The roof, hood, and spoiler came out great. I bet it was the damn transfer tape, damn that stuff is awful.

I'm going to lay the rest tomorrow. Thanks for the input fellas.

mustangstriper

better late then never.. im an installer but it sounds like everybody gave u some great advice ..u might wanna let those bubbles relax on their own ..cuz if u keep trying to squeegee them out ur gonna stretch the vinyl in the bubble area ..and when it settles there will be too much vinyl to fit smoothly ..so it will always have a flaw ... i have a feeling its not air bubbles its prob dirt from ur wet application around the 3rd brake light ,theres always alot of dirt that sits in that gully and when u wet it it runs down ...thats why i remove the brake light and i end up tucking my stripe in behind the light .i dont use kits i stripe from a roll so i dont have alot of gaps around everything(washer doodads,brakelight, fake gas frisbee....im rambling...sorry..put up some pics so we can check it out!!....and kudos to u for steppin up and installing 12" stripes..not an easy job ...the wider u go the tougher the install....especially on bumpers...

East87

Well I actually employed my trusty X-Acto knife and eliminated 95% of the awful bubbles around the back! It actually looks fantastic. I'm going to let the rest of the really tiny ones sit on their own in the sun.

But then catastrophe struck... Last night around 2:30am, I guess I was getting punchy because I was fatigued, and I ended up setting a hard crease into the vinyl around the license plate. The crease is an inch long (1-2 mm wide) and appears totally immovable. I guess I was just in a daze applying heat from the hair dryer to the wrinkle and it all of a sudden shriveled up and creased. I was thinking that I could apply more heat today to see if I can relax the stripe around it, but I don't know. There is also a wrinkle on the other side of the license plate that I'm afraid to put down because it might react the same way. I left the car overnight because I needed sleep. I wasn't thinking clearly, and I was stumbling, etc. Everything is totally dry I imagine.

Here's a picture of the crease. It is maybe 1-2 millimeters wide *Can anyone please tell me what I can do, if anything, to make this look halfway decent?* The rough scratch off to the right was another half-inch long crease that formed. I just took my fingernail and literally scraped it off. There was no hope, and I was willing to live with it...


Here is a picture of that wrinkle that still needs to go down. It is about 1/8-1/4" wide. *How is this wrinkle supposed to go down?*



edit: jeez there are a lot of air bubbles around. I can only see them now with that big *** painter's halogen pointed right at it.