I just started installing the decal on my top.

No matter how careful I am, each piece comes out full of bubbles.

I'm pretty sure I just trashed a $100 decal.

don't pop them with a sewing pin.
it seems like the quick and easy solution but actually causes tears a couple of months later.

you need to sit the car out in the hot sun and get it really hot.
you need a squeege and to keep working them once its good and hot.
you can usually get 80% of them out that way...

don't pop them.
brant

would one want to keep the surface wet while working out the bubbles? I used to work in a shop where we screened big decals, and the material used was pretty porous- water soaked through easily. We put a little dish soap in the water too. I remember the whole sheets would slide around pretty easily. I was always surprised that the "trapped" liquid dried out, but it did.

I heard just the opposite from the vinyl installer at Racer's Group.
They do ALL their installs in the cool shop, out of the sunlight

For me, the key is lots of water. Spray the surfaces that get it and the back of the stickers.

Once you have it positioned, spray the release paper and get it fully saturated. Start to squeegee from the inside-out.

After you lift the realease paper, use a soft object ( felt block ) to push the trapped air and water out from under the vinyl without scratching the design.

Works for me...


KT

Have you tried the wet method or are you just sticking it on dry.
Usually does a pretty good job.

How to apply decals

Look at the video in the link at the bottom.


M

About a 1/2 tsp. of dish soap in a windex bottle of water. Carefully stir the water don't shake it. Wet the surface and the decal. slide it in place, start in the middle with a plastic squeege and lock the decal down, carefully move the water/soap mixture out from under the decal from the center out. Don't go too fast. I also us a heat gun as I go. (very carfully or you'll shrink the edges and have to start over)

Good luck Joe. Also be sure the surface is clean and lint free or you'll trap the stuff under the decal and it will read through.

Biggest one I ever applied was a Smokey and the Bandit stlye Eagle on a Trans Am! It was the size of the hood, and yes it sucked.

I also disagree with 'popping' the bubbles. You can usually see the pin pricks regardless. You can work them out the sides (yes even the ones in the middle), but it take LOTS of time and patience. Beyond that, I too am a bit baffled by the application of large vinyl.

Hey look three people with the same idea

We did my Carrera graphics the way Scott recommends. Go to a garden supply store and get a spray/mister bottle. Use a little dish detergent in the mix. Apply in a cool location and use a squeege to work the bubbles out.

LOL 3 replies since I hit the send. I guess he has his info.

Also heard a freshly washed and WAXED car takes 'em better, too.


KT

maybe the bubbles directions were specific the vinyl that my decals are made from?

I know for a fact I met with my guy who does the HUGE decals on the sides of semi-tractor rigs.

He showed me ones that had been pin-popped and large tears that would later occur as the decal stretched and shrunk from heat.

he told me that the pin pop hole gets pulled by very large decals and the material streches by tearing the pin-hole. On an unpopped decal the stretching is sharred equally in all directions. but on a pin-popped decal the hole becomes the path of least resistance. Remember this is a large decal and not a 6inch type thing. So perhaps its material specific... I just know that I follow this advice out of my desire not to replace my expensive decals on the race car.

brant

X2 or X3 or whatever. Don't be afraid to use too much of the solution. I actually use a 50/50 mix of water and rubbing alcohol. Used a bondo spreader to work the decal down.

What everyone else said. Wash the surface, squeegee clean, spray with soapy water mixture. Lay decal on table sticky side up. Spray soapy water on sticky side (adhesive exposed). Slap that sucker on the surface of the car and position to where ever your heart's content. Hold down the center with your left hand (for right handed peeps), and use a rubber scraper/squeegee and squeegee from the middle out. The lube (soapy water) will let you work out all the air bubbles. The moisture will bake itself out in the sun. Once you've squeegeed out as much moisture as possible, start peeling off the paper backing. You want to peel the paper back parallel to the decal, not perpendicular. If you pull up on the paper, you risk lifting the decal. Gosh I hope that makes sense.

Jen

Well, live and learn.

I would have never thought to WET an adhesive decal.

I trashed my $100 top decal. I'll leave it on for Moab, but It'll have to be redone.

There's also a circle that goes around the number, but there was absolutely no way it would center in the correct space.

I ended up having to apply what you see as individual pieces, because I didn't know the water trick.

I've pissed away more than $100 on the RS...

Glad you said it. I just sat quietly on the sidelines here thinking I must not be understanding what they were talking about. "water & sticker" seems a bit odd.

Bubbles or not, that design is cool!

The picture looks great, but not so much in person.

It'll be redone correctly.

Also, this decal came in four pieces, which made it very difficult to align.

I'm going to look for a cutter that can take the full size as one piece. I'll have a better chance at success next time.

Yes on the design. I like that a lot.


KT

You can install 100ft. of decal with that method.

Hello to my sign shop brother. Niagara Falls on the canadian side was all mine bro in lit signs, awnings, banners and neon.

stay away from the alcohol...water and a mild soap...NO ALCOHOL!!


...well maybe 12oz in a frosty mug...

Joe, my cutter is 30 inches wide. However the targa top is about 31.5" wide. If you can live with a bit of a gap at the front or back, or a two piece sticker, I can help out.

I use exaxto blades to pop bubbles...also on a top, you can either section like Mark said or use a black border to compensate for the width issue.....not like a Porsche owner has ever had to compensate......

Electrical tape makes a good border. Gotta work the Home Depot into each project. Where's Trekkor when you need him.

Whats wrong with the alcohol trick? It was recommended in a couple of different sets of directions of products I used.

it has a negative reaction with the adhesive. So does Amonia. Some folks recomend windex, but you must make sure it has no Amonia in it. It's worse than the alcohol.

xacto blades are worse than pins. They leave a straight line cut and are more likely to tear than the round holes. Even in the sign shops they carry pin tools and burnishing tools combined in one little stick. The round hole is less likely to start a run.

Ahhh like the window tint removal trick? I've used amonia to remove window tint before.

Sorry....but that's bullshit. I use exactos ALL the time.....I have stuff that's been on for years and they look fine....just don't be heavy handed.

Depends on the decal, and what material you're using... I used to work at a sweat sign shop, and I applied anything and everything at one point or another.

My preferred method for large to small decals like yours, while doing it by myself or with some extra hands:

Whatever you do, get one of these if you aren't using one:
Our shop usually included one of these, I don't know if your decal guy gives you a proper squeegee or not, but this is critical. Gold squeegees are harder than blue ones, which means that the blue ones will allow you to follow contours much more easily, but they wear out a bit faster--which shouldn't be a concern unless you're planning to do a fleet, and they cost around a buck anyway. The anti-friction sleeve is also helpful, but not strictly necessary. It allows you to press harder and not cause friction related problems.

Also, go get some of the GREEN or BLUE 3M masking tape, from a home supply store or paint supply, etc. Green has stronger adhesive which will allow you to be more violent, and neither will harm your paint.

First, I would tape the decal firmly into position, in the exact position it needs to be in. Anchor it firmly on both of the sides of the car, but leave the other edges alone--the direction facing the engine lid and windshield respectively. Cut a piece of masking tape a few inches wider than your decal in both directions, six inches or so total. Take that piece of tape and place it so that it goes north/south--in other words, across center of the shorter axis. Cut some more pieces and put them right along side of this one so that your line of tape covers more surface area.

edit: just found a picture gallery that explains exactly what I was getting on about with much fewer words: Clicky Here look here, and the rest below will make much greater sense.

We're going to use this longitudinal anchor as a hinge, if you hadn't already guessed... Decide which side of the decal you want to apply first, and anchor the opposite side of the tape MUCH better, so the decal won't have a tenancy to twist. Put a piece of tape every few inches, you can't make sure it's down good enough. An extra pair of hands at this stage will be helpful, especially if you're doing this on a vertical surface.

Now take the tape off the side that you want to apply first, and pull it over the other side--the one that you just taped the heck out of in the last step, but be extremely careful not to pull so hard that you kink your decal on your tape hinge. You don't want it to go 180 degrees, and put a fold in your vinyl, in other words. Peel the backing liner off this side of the decal, so that it lays in the direction it previously did.

For the sake of clarity, the decal that's stuck on the pre-space tape is now laying upside down, on top of the other side of the decal. The adhesive side is pointing up, and the backing paper is off, and your decal is not kinked..

Lift the backing paper up off your targa, and using a brand new, or like new straight razor blade or very sharp pair of scissors, cut the backing material away from your pre-space tape and vinyl, so that your cut is parallel with your tape hinge. The idea is that you want a very clean cut. You don't want paper bits going everywhere, because they'll get stuck to your decal and make it look bumpy.

Since you're doing a roof on a car, you're probably not going to have the arm length to do this alone, unless you want to stand on your engine lid. You're going to need a helper. You want to pass the lose side of the decal over to your helper, being careful not to let any part of the decal touch your application surface. It's best to keep the lose side quite tense, but not tense enough that you're going to rip your tape hinge off, and you'll want it held up by your helper an inch or so on the lose side.

Take your squeegee and hold it perpendicular to your tape hinge. Using an arcing motion, starting from near the center of the decal, press your squeegee firmly down, and arc away from your hinge and to the outside of the decal. The most critical part of this is making sure that you get the vinyl along the cut of your backing paper down really good, and bubble free, otherwise there will be a line of bubbles. Being sure to overlap your strokes by a healthy amount, slowly apply everything towards the direction of your helper... And tell your helper that they need to lower the material as you go that direction, but they must absolutely keep it tensioned, and off the application surface, or the whole deal is likely to become FUBAR.

The one thing that is going to give you bubbles is not taking your time and not generously overlapping your strokes.

Now you'll take all of your anchoring tape off the other side, including your tape hinge, because the pre-space tape will become the hinge, and you just do that side like you do the other side.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a lot of steps, so sorry if this is too long or isn't especially clear, or even comprehensible (it's bed time, but I wanted to get this reply in) I would have loved to give you step by step photos, but I'm not doing that sort of thing any more, and I don't have the instruction sheet we shipped out with our decals.

I've found that this is the single most efficient way to apply decals as big as 10'x50", and anything in between. Also, I don't buy into the water and soap thing, because it's just not effective for this situation, it's very messy, and I have doubts about the soap being friendly to the longevity of decals that will be exposed to varying temperatures:

My experience is that the decal will laminate, and cause wormy looking bubbles, because of the natural expansion and contraction cycle of vinyl, and it seems like the soap film makes the adhesive less sticky, and will cause a film in between the adhesive and the application surface. Just to give you an idea of some of the stuff I saw whilst doing this kind of thing, some of our vinyls would stretch as much as 1/4" over 4' if there was a 50 degree temperature difference between one decal and another identical other, and the backing material allows it to flow out a certain amount, whereas the interference between the adhesive and a real application surface doesn't allow that to happen, causing tension in the vinyl when it gets cold, and when it gets hot it goes wormy because the vinyl stretched to a very small degree. If your decal wouldn't be sitting out in the blistering New Mexico sun for more than a few minutes, I'd say that you might be able to get away with the water/soap technique.

Also, I too find a good exacto blade to work much better than a pin for bubbles, and they're sometimes inevitable. It dosen't matter if you've done it for five days for five years, even the best will encounter problems.



Best of luck.

wow, what explicit instructions...
I agree with all statements, actually. The adhesion is certainly impacted by the soapy water application method, but it was the lesser of evils for my application capabilities.

you can hit the bubbles with an exacto blade and push out the air

wet application can make installing large surfaces easier
(2 drops of babyshampoo or dishsoap in a spraybottle of water)

degrease the surface before applying

we did this one dry though