Wrapped front grille with vinyl

I was trying to decide between painting and wrapping my front grille, and just decided to go with the wrap. I figured it will match my roof better and I can always take it off if I wanted to. I did matte black on the grille and gloss black on the emblem. Now I just need to do the lower grille and the door handles/trim chrome pieces.
Here are some pics.

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wow that looks good! Im assuming you had a non-sport grill, so did you also wrap the 'bumps' or you left them alone? Also wondering material you used... gracias =]
 
that looks nice, would be very hard to get the same matte look with paint & probably wouldn't be as durable in a matte finish painted too, looks real nice. are any of the seems obvious? that would be my concern with wrapping it...
 
wow that looks good! Im assuming you had a non-sport grill, so did you also wrap the 'bumps' or you left them alone? Also wondering material you used... gracias =]

Yeah, what I did was trim the bottom of each horizontal bar and folded it inside to the top of the next bar, so those bumps were covered (I don't know how else to explain this). It didn't reach all the way inside, but I would say about 80%, but this seemed fine because even the existing chrome spray didn't reach all the way back. Basically, it reached to where the chrome paint reached.

I used oracal 970ra, the same film I used for my roof. Way better than 3M cast matte black IMO. I still have alot of film if you want some.
 
Would be great if you could explain the process or maybe illustrate with some photos. Maybe a DIY if it's not too late? I have a hard time seeing how you laid it down and got it smooth without wrinkles and seams.
 
that looks nice, would be very hard to get the same matte look with paint & probably wouldn't be as durable in a matte finish painted too, looks real nice. are any of the seems obvious? that would be my concern with wrapping it...

Do you mean from rock chips? The vinyl that I used has almost like a rubbery texture. If I poke it with my nail, the groove kinda molds back to its original shape almost like memory foam. So I would think it would do better in terms of withstanding from rock chips, but I guess only time will tell.
 
wow, that glossy emblem with flat bars looks great, very sporty. :shy:.
how much practice did you you have to go thru? no soapy water? my worst fear is the peelings of the not so great contact points.
 
nice, did you wrap the "humps" also? When I did mine, I just did the face of the grill.
over time though, the vinyl gets brittle and just needs to be redone. I was thinking of doing it in DI-NOC :wink:
 
Okay, I dunno if this is gonna make it more confusing, but here it goes. If I come across doing another grille, I'll take some pictures and do a DIY.

(remove the grille from the car and work on a table)

In order to wrap the "humps/bumps" on the inner side of the grill, what you do is first cut out one piece that covers about 1/2 of the grill (to the bottom of the emblem), like in the picture below. Once you peel the backing paper off, lay it on top of the grill and trim out the emblem (or you can remove the emblem first, which will be easier). Then, you squeegee the vinyl to all the "face" of the grill and stretch a bit if necessary so that there aren't any wrinkles. No heat gun needed up to this point.

Then, you make a cut on the bottom of the top horizontal bar (dotted lines). This will give you piece "1" below. Now you apply light heat to piece 1 (start from center) and fold it down (to the top of the next bar) so that the inner side of the grill (i.e. humps) get covered. When heat is applied, the vinyl is very flexible which allows you to shape it around the humps. You don't even need a squeegee, I just wore a cotton glove to press the vinyl to the plastic. The most difficult parts are the inside corners of each horizontal bar. You just need to apply a little more heat than usual and press it down. The corners aren't going to come out perfect, but it's hardly visible unless you really look for them.

IMG_2504_wrap.jpg

Then you do the bottom half. You can probably use 1 large to piece to do this, but it's very difficult with the emblem on and you will need someone to help you stretch the vinyl on all four corners so the face of the grill gets covered with no wrinkles.
 
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nice job. Let me know how the process of the door handle goes, taking it apart and wrapping it, just want to know how extensive the project is before I start on it. Also where did you buy the film as well.
 
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