Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I painted the first couple of campers that I built and didn't care for the results. And here in Florida it takes FOR-EV-ER to dry. I looked at aluminum skin but can't easily manage the panels before they're cut and don't want to risk dinging it. Plus, it ain't cheap. I decided to experiment with laying automotive vinyl wrap over plywood to see what I can get out of that. I realize that the porous surface of plywood isn't ideal, so I created a series of test panels to try different primers with and without the addition of 3M 94 tape adhesive primer to see if I could find a combination that looks good, is less work than painting and has enough adhesion to last.

I've used both marine and Sande plywood in my boxes so I tested both. The marine plywood has fairly hard exterior plys whereas the Sande is pretty soft. I tried four variations, plain sanded plywood, polycrylic treated, water-based primer and an oil-based primer. Each panel had one side that included the 3M tape primer for a total of 16 variations.



After sanding all the pieces, I applied my different primers, let those dry for several hours, then sanded them smooth. The polycrylic was the hardest to get smooth, it tended to pill up under the sander. I wiped them all with tack cloth and applied the vinyl. I didn't bother trying to overlap it, I wanted to have exposed edges so I can see how it adheres. I'm going to let them sit for another day before I see how they stick.



So far the best appearing result has been the marine plywood with oil primer and no 3M. I used black matte finish because I figured that would readily show flaws. Assuming some of these variations stick well enough I'm going to try some other patterned vinyls that might be more forgiving of small surface irregularities.



I'll post an update after I see what sticks.

I want to make a new one already, just to have it wrapped

twisted lines wrote:I want to make a new one already, just to have it wrapped

I saw a Bentley here in SWFL done in a chrome wrap. It's not something I'd do personally but that was kinda bad ass. And the wrap really did reflect like chrome. I got a small roll of that to test, along with a pattern that's like black brushed aluminum.

Vinyl wraps deteriorate over time due to weather, especially UV rays. Lots of sunshine in Florida

Yep. The life expectancy of the wrap is definitely something to consider.
Most of the companies claim 7, 10, even a 20 year lifespan for their product.
But the shops that apply and repair those wraps will tell you that 3-4 years is about it for a vehicle or trailer that is meant to look good and not just hide horrible paint or damage. By 7-8 years, there's enough deterioration that it must be completely replaced, and may already be peeling or crumbling.

Though not the same as replacing aluminum, I don't know that I would want to re-skin my trailer every 4 years.


Regardless, I am interested to see what your results and decision will be.

greygoos wrote:Vinyl wraps deteriorate over time due to weather, especially UV rays. Lots of sunshine in Florida

Yeah that's true, good point. OTOH, I think the way this particular kind of camper is used and stored would extend the life of a high quality wrap. Given its size, I store it in the garage. If it were outside, it would be covered with a tarp when not in use. So its only exposure would be when it's in use, and that would probably be less than 2 months total in a years' time.

Squigie wrote:Regardless, I am interested to see what your results and decision will be.

I got some good results from my tests. In a nutshell, only the panel with oil-based primer did poorly in the adhesion test. The plain sanded, polycrylic and water-based primer panels all had good adhesion on the left side (no 3M). On the right side, the addition of the 3M tape primer added enough adhesion that I had to deform the vinyl to get it to pull off.

I didn't have any kind of gauge to measure this objectively but it seemed like the plain sanded panel with two coats of 3M adhesive took the most effort. Perhaps if I had put a second coat of 3M on the other two panels I would have gotten the same result.

I think I'm going to give this a try. As I replied to greygoos, this camper won't be continually exposed like a larger camper would. It will be garage kept when not in use and at a max would be outside 2 months in total over a years time. I think that will significantly extend the life of the vinyl and will be worth trying.

Great thread. This is very interesting.

I've contemplated putting a vinyl enhancement on my td. Some kind of graphic. Just didn't know how it would look over PMF. First I need to repaint the rd. Not because it's needed, I just don't like the color of the original color.

Here's a look at the vinyl wrap on the camper. It turned out great and I'm really happy with it.



I used a water-based primer/sealer on the wood, sanded that, then applied 3M's tape adhesion primer. The 3M primer dries to the touch in seconds and is then ready for the wrap. The wrap applied easily. This wrap seems to release trapped air bubbles a lot better than older wraps I've messed with and with a little heat applied from a blow dryer, it really grabs the surface.

If you look at it from an angle you can see some of the grain from the plywood (not in this particular picture, but when standing in front of it). It is for this reason that I went with a wrap that had a pattern. If I'd wrapped the camper with a solid color, I think the grain would have looked bad. On the camo, you only see it at an angle, and I think the grain and wrap pattern complement each other. Next time I think I will use digital camo because the highly pixelated pattern would make wood grain even harder to see.

The only immediately apparent downside to it is that it's susceptible to dings. When installing screws into the latches my screwdriver slipped a couple of times and hit the vinyl, leaving a couple of small punctures. On the plus side, the camo pattern made it easy to fix. I cut a couple of small coverup patches from leftover material and covered the "Doh!s" quickly. What holes?

I'm not really worried about that because it's a camper and while I want it to look nice a few nicks here and there are like camping achievement badges. I also understand that vinyl won't stand up to UV exposure like paint or powder coat, but when not in use this camper will be garage stored. Besides, if those spots had been covered with aluminum skin and I'd done the same thing, I'd have had a bigger issue.

So I feel like this was a better solution on the whole for this application. It really looks good with the bike.