Attack from Mars
Bally, 1995Has anyone tried vinyl wrapping parts that are traditionally powder coated? I tried it this morning and was thrilled with the results. I may pull it off and use a different color. I used the Avery Supercast 900 series with EZ apply. You can chase out air bubbles anywhere due to the channel-embossed liner. Very easy and it only took about 1 1/2 hours to do the lockdown and side rails. I might try a leg later today.
I was vinyl wrapping a bezel for a fight stick recently and it made me wonder about this very subject. Glad to see someone tried it.
Quoted from Titan_Pinball:No seams. It took about 6' from a 24" roll
Wow, looks a whole lot better than I would've guessed - nice job!
What kind of sorcery is involved in doing that 3-surface corner on a lockdown bar without seams?
Quoted from Titan_Pinball:Loving it so far. It even feels good. I'm not real confident it will last but we'll see!
Don't see why not. People wrap cars, holds up fine on the road. No reason why some light handling should be an issue I wouldn't think.
Quoted from Blackjacker:Wow, looks a whole lot better than I would've guessed - nice job!
What kind of sorcery is involved in doing that 3-surface corner on a lockdown bar without seams?
This vinyl works so well I didn't even use the heat gun. Just kept pulling it tighter and tighter over the corner until it had no winkles. Way better than 3M's version.
Quoted from Frax:I need some UV reactive trippy vinyl all of a sudden for my Crescendo...
The photoluminescent wold be tits. It doesn't go aroung curves very well though. It cracks and splits.
I tried Carbon fiber vinyl on a lock down bar, hoping to create a die cut product to market.
The issues I had, smoothing out, looks like you solved with avery.
Every method I tried had some issues, but when done, it looked real good.
(Sorry no pics taken)
In the end, I was happy...it took 4 tries, but felt without that important avery channel feature you have
brought to my attention, it would be too hard to get right for a new person to do, without a high percentage of issues.
It did look really sharp, though.
Maybe Ill do JD in complimentary colored Carbon Fiber....
Quoted from bam10:Seems like someone in Allentown had this.
My company Tilt Graphics Inc. had on display a series of vinyl warped legs and lock down bars at Allentown and Pintastic.
Looks pretty good and should hold up pretty well. I do some hydro graphics stuff and you have to primer first and then clear coat afterwords. This seems much simpler and cheaper if you just want solid colors.
Quoted from kdunbar:Need to print my wife's name on it to help convince her the next pin I bring home is hers
Lol. I always joke with my wife that I bought BSD for her and call it her pin. "But honey it says "Love Never Dies" clearly this is a romantic gift!"
Quoted from Deez:Will this work on a textured Stern lockdown bar?
I would say yes.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/shrek-custom-lockdown-bar-pics
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/potc-black-pearl-vs-flying-dutchman-le
Wow what a great idea.
I've had great results wrapping other stuff with 3M Di-Noc (carbon fiber, amongst other "textures")
I imagine this will hold up great over time! The trickiest part is doing tight corners. Having a heat gun helps.
You can see videos of car guys wrapping whole cars in the stuff on youtube.
Um, green glitter for $13?! Green chrome for $20!?! I can't afford not to do this to Congo. Let the downvotes flow, I don't have the money for a proper powder coat!
ebay.com link: Premium Gloss Glitter Metallic Sparkle Vinyl Wrap Sticker Film Bubble Free Film
ebay.com link: Car Mirror Green Chrome Vinyl Film Wrap Graphic Sticker Decal Roll 20 x60
Don't forget there are more choices than just carbon print, gloss, chrome, and matte.
I posted this last month. Tilt Graphics had this in their booth at Pintastic, and replied to my post 10 posts after to clarify they were not currently for sale, and basically doing it for fun.
The lock down bar they had done was not totally smooth in the corners. The one above looks great, and must be thinner vinyl.
Wrapping the legs on my FT has been on my list of things to do since I saw that.
Alright here we go! Received today - ebay.com link: itm
Came with a felt squeegee and a new cheap little razor blade. Laid it all out flat. Noticed it's certainly of lesser quality/thickness than the 3M Di-Noc I'm used to. Still seems nice. The "carbon" texture isn't as defined as Di-Noc, there's little physical texture to it. However, it feels smooth and has a matte feel.
Measured the rails first, 2" wide. Measured 2.5" on the ground and cut. After the fact I noticed that the paper backing has premeasured squares printed on it. I didn't have a T-square so I secured a measuring tape as a guide.
Popped off the lockdown bar, removed the bolt securing the rail. Was cool to see remnants of the plastic that protected the rails when the game was new! Wiped down the rails with a paper towel and some 99% rubbing alcohol.
I removed the paper back on about 70% of the length and visually lined it up. Pretty easy. The adhesive is pretty forgiving in case you mess up and need to re-apply. Pressed down the sides, pressed down the top. The hardest part is at the top. I cut along the head bracket with the razor and cut off the excess material. Didn't come out perfect but it's so far up there I didn't care much.
Cut off the excess along the bottom, holding the blade at a 45 degree angle. Cut off the excess by the glass, running flush along the rail.
Looks great! Next up is the lockdown bar...
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Well the lockdown is a bitch. Specifically the corners. I measured out the length with a bunch of excess, laid most of it down on the center part. When it came to wrapping the corners I was a bit at a loss.
I tried pulling and stretching best I could, but pulling too much on one side creates excess bunching on another. At the corner I tried cutting a 45 degree line to try to overlap it and it turned out... OK. Tried using the hair dryer but I feel that just ruined the texture and I feared I would stretch it too thin.
Going to leave it for now as it's decent, give it another shot another day. Hoping to have enough extra material to do the front 2 legs.
Still though, for the 20 minutes and $7, looks pretty damn nice!
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Quoted from Aurich:Don't see why not. People wrap cars, holds up fine on the road. No reason why some light handling should be an issue I wouldn't think.
People also paint cars that hold up but that does not hold up on lockdown bars and rails.
Quoted from dudah:At the corner I tried cutting a 45 degree line to try to overlap it and it turned out... OK.
I would start will a small piece of vinyl and practice wrapping the corner using tutorials from youtube.
Checked the mailbox, but no vinyl today. 
I will be happy if I get a couple legs done smoothly with their contour.
Quoted from dudah:I tried pulling and stretching best I could, but pulling too much on one side creates excess bunching on another. At the corner I tried cutting a 45 degree line to try to overlap it and it turned out... OK. Tried using the hair dryer but I feel that just ruined the texture and I feared I would stretch it too thin.
A couple things for next time. A hair dryer won't cut it, the stuff has memory and you can heat it out with a heat gun or a torch, sounds nuts but that's what it takes, and yes you can burn it right up.
The key is to heat and stretch well past the corners letting the material take the shape. It may not happen on the first try. You can also buy an adhesive usually available from the seller, which can help but means a bit more effort if you have to replace. I'd only use it on the edges and corner. You'll have to hold until cool. Really its a crutch if you see it pulling on the glue you didn't remove the memory in the plastic.
With some spare pieces heat and stretch and learn its limits if you can, it will get thinner and if you don't heat it enough, it will try to rebound back to its original shape as it cools. Because of this, I would instead recommend wrapping around to the back of the bar. This gives you a place to hold and some wiggle room to react if it start to shrink back, get the heat on it asap. It can be ugly and wrinkled in the back, you can trim it later fter its cool iand has a new memory of the new shape.
When the shop wrapped the wood grain on my wagon, watching them work an actual butane torch was scary since I had paid over $1200 bucks to print that particular pattern of woodgrain, but they knew what they were doing and shared a lot of tips. I later used that info to wrap trim pieces. The torch is used at a distance and in small figure 8 patterns or overlapping circles. It better than a heat gun because it can get the temp up faster, keeping the plastic in place. You'll see the plastic relax if your doing it right, start 6-8" away and move in as you swirl the torch or heat gun and when your at the right point it just smooths out like glass.
Use a fine needle on bubbles and do the same working from the edge to chase the air out the hole you prick in the top.
I made my own squeegees with some felt and rubber bondo mixers, you can buy them when you buy the material, but be careful and don't apply it directly to a freshly heated area, it can pull and deform the very soft material. Its for 5-10 sec later when it cooling and you want to press it down a bit. don't push too hard, you can texture or scratch.
I won't be able to get to my own project for a while, but when I do, I'll try to make a video and share.
You can practice on what you have, maybe even save it. I have a pair of those as-seen-on-tv ov-gloves, so you can grip the small ends, have some adhesive on hand. If you get to the point where the metals hot, let it sit for a while before going back. You just want to heat the plastic. Rapid cooling is a big part of memory formation, that won't happen if your metal is hot.
I'm not a pro, but did wrap a lot of complex trim on my station wagon using this method. Learned the hard lessons fast, but found it wasn't that hard once you got a feel for what the material can do.
EDIT - A heatgun should work for this, its not that complex of a piece just use lots of extra materials for the edges so you can really get a stretch around the corners. I would likely also work from the front pulling it over to the back near the glass where it the thinnest, then down around the corners. Corners last.
Cheap material is useless, you get what you pay for.
Quoted from Neal_W:I will be happy if I get a couple legs done smoothly with their contour.
Shouldn't be a problem because its a simple shape, the glue on the material can probably hold it without much if any heating. If you can work with the material lengthwise, not top to bottom like a sock. If your legs have depressions, that will need a bit of heat. If you watch any videos online, its a matter of laying it down in small thin areas as you peel back the backing sharply and slowly to avoid capturing any air beneath, chasing the edge to mate the materials.
Good luck
Quoted from markmon:People also paint cars that hold up but that does not hold up on lockdown bars and rails.
Against constant abrasion, oil, and sweat, paint won't stand a chance. Your basically wet sanding the surface every time you play. Vinyl might not much better, but its typically colored throughout so, wear won't be as obvious unless you have texture, and its cheap and easy to replace, unlike paint.
Been a couple weeks, vinyl has been holding up fine! No lifting or wear! The vinyl texture feels good while playing, also. Still need to re-do the lockdown but I'm happy with it for the time being. Threw some scrap on the ball stops of the habitrails and it looks nice!
As the ball guides on this are big flat pieces of metal, I plan on wrapping those also!
Righty ho ... finally got around to putting some carbon wrap on my Corvette lock bar.
The first attempt was similar to the above post .. tried to cut it and wrap it and it ended up a bit crappy.
So I tried again today. I hit it with my heat gun and that was the ticket. The corners were no problems. The wrap stretched easily.
I got it about 9/10 on the first go. Not 100% perfect but good enough for now. I will be doing the rails, legs and apron as well over the next week or two.
rd
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Corvette Part Deux!
My scabby old Corvette actually came with a TOM apron. Lol! So I had previously just painted it in satin black so it didn't look like crap. 
So let's stick some carbon on it! To enhance its performance and make it fast as hell!!
Two photos before ... and two photos after.
rd
Quoted from Titan_Pinball:Looks great! Do you know what brand of film that carbon fiber is?
Just some generic stuff I picked up off the NZ version of EBAY. $30 for 3 metres long x 1500mm wide (including postage)
3M stuff would no doubt be better but this stuff will do the job.
rd
Corvette Part Trois!
Removed the stock rails. Pretty manky. Gave them a quick clean up on the wire wheel and they came up ok.
I cut the wrap to length, and adhered it to the flat side on the work bench. The critical part for me was to get the top side right, as that's mainly what you see.
I put it in the vice and used the heat gun to bend the corners around to the top side, pulling it tight it as I went along. (Then I pulled on the carbon wrap! Boooya!)
Then, same to the bottom side. The heat gun is a necessity to make the wrap bend around the corners. You'd be pushing poop uphill without the heat.
Then I trimmed the excess with a knife.
Then finally, trial fit back on the machine.
Boom! The fastest looking Corvette pinball on the streets! 
rd
EDIT pics are out of order but you get the idea.
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Bad ass! That must be some pretty decent film. Even the 3m stuff doesn't really stretch. Those corners look great!
Quoted from indy5mike:Hey RD,
You need to find a cool Corvette decal for the center of that apron!
That was originally the plan, back when I painted the TOM apron black. I was going to put some decals on it.
Might leave it in the carbon for a while ... we shall see.
rd
Generally, the faux carbon fiber look annoys the snot out of me (I don't need a carbon fiber coffee cup - STOP!), but on these Corvette games, I think that you've all done an excellent job making your machines look great. Putting it on the apron too is an excellent touch; add a few 'vette details on the apron and it'll really sing. Well done.
The yellow on the JD looks great too. It's not one I would have considered, but it really works. Nice vision!
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Torrance, CA
Woolloongabba
Beauharnois