One of our partners is Diamond Freight. They move just about anything from truckload to LTL across the city or the nation. So they have a wide number of different trucks. This one was the first for this body style. It’s a 14′ open box truck with a low deck. It’s perfect for LTL and cross city transport and it has no rivets.
One of the biggest time consumers when wrapping or adding cut graphics to a truck body are rivets. In most cases, when we place the vinyl over the rivets, we have to go back over the rivet with a foam roller and a torch. Heat the vinyl and tuck the vinyl in around the base of the rivet. Every rivet. A normal 53′ trailer has over 11,000 rivets. A skilled installer can process a rivet in just under 15 seconds. Doing a little math, one installer would take 45 hours just working the rivets on a trailer!! That’s why we usually use 4 or 5 installers for a trailer. This one was really nice because there were literally zero rivets. There were also no seams in the body. It was really great, almost. The issue with this body is that the exterior is made from thermoformed PVC. Normal wrap material is made to adhere to an aluminum body. We tested the adhesive prior to printing the graphics and found that wrap material would not hold. Glad we checked. We also have a vinyl with an aggressive adhesive that worked beautifully.
It’s always fun when we locate the graphics on the side of the box. Especially this one because the design leans forward. The body of the van rises from front to back which creates the illusion that the logo is not level. We always level to the ground so the deign looks and reads on the level. With the advent of custom body styles, this has added to the complexity of some wraps. When body lines are not level, it creates a challenge to ensure that the logo looks correct. When we started installing wraps, one of our installers made the mistake of lining up with the body lines. Needless to say, we had to reprint and reinstall one set of graphics.
If you have one van or a fleet of vans and you need custom graphics please give us a call. We can be reached at 262.289.9481 or email us at info@optimumsignswi.com. We would love to help you with your project.
