Teardrop Finish: Whoa!

Out of four auto-body shops solicited, two turned me down flatly (preferring to focus on insurance revenue streams) and only one actually responded with a quote to paint the teardrop with Filon covering.

Let's just say the price was well over twice my expectations.  I'm sure my expectations were unrealistically low, but still - twice that?

Can't do.

So, the fallback choices are to:

a) Paint it myself using marine paints intended for boats.  I am confident in my abilities with a spray-painting rig ... having spent a fair amount of time doing just that early in my post-collegiate days.  The issues involve dust control (the trailer is outside under a tent) and volatility - the paints are solvent-based and therefore combustion is a concern.  I believe these issues could be mitigated, and the resultant cost would be about 1/4 the cost of the automotive paint job.

b) Vinyl wrap.  All those cars and buses you see with weird graphics on an angle are actually wrapped in vinyl that has been printed with the graphics.  One can even change the color of a car with a wrap without paying for a full paint job.  Your Beamer is blue and you want it to be red?  You want a full carbon-fiber look?  No problem - wrap it!

The added feature of vinyl wrap is that one can do custom graphics for the same cost.  I am assured that the current crop of 3M products are warranted for 7 years but one could reasonably expect it to last much longer.

I believe the wrap could be done at about half the automotive paint job, or twice what it would cost me to paint it myself.

Okay, I bit.  I went to work on what the trailer would look like with some of my photos applied.  Here, then, are some samples.  The sides of the trailer are shown a) with the graphics not fully opaque to show where the image would appear on the trailer side, and b) the fully-opaque graphic.

The way it will work is that the company will print the opaque graphic on vinyl media and then apply it to the trailer.  The front/top/rear would appear as shown.

Left (port) side:

The image of the Snowy Egret would appear behind the window facing rear-ward.  Below is the full image, indicating that most of the trailer side would be blue.

Here are the right (starboard) side equivalents:

Finally, the front/top/rear are all one graphic as shown below; the Little Blue Heron is on the rear, the Red-Breasted Nuthatch on the front.

The front/top/back image has no transparent counterpart since it is not interrupted by doors or windows.  The two images will show on the front and the rear, while the top will be a blue gradient.

I am rethinking the right side as it is the only panel that doesn't make use of blues.  Changing to a photo using blues would unify the entire set of graphics.

In the end, I like the vinyl wrap - it is the path of least resistance, assuming that the cost (twice that of painting myself) is manageable.  And, it stands the best chance of a cool appearance when done.  And, it is my original work in the photos.  And, one can overlay items such as the blog address, or, in otherwise blank fields, other photos, and those items are removable.  It becomes a living (mutable on demand) thing. 
 

Please stay tuned.