I've made this a thread and sticky all of its own for future generations... Thank you for putting this together for the forums Grunt!
Regards,Taily
I ended up getting the rego yesterday and was going to a show in Mornington but it looked like rain so I stayed home and put the Sandman decals on.
I own a signwriting company so this job is fairly easy for me, I will include a run through to help anyone else out.
1st step is you have to trim all the decals up close as they are supplied uncut, leave about 5mm of clear around the design. I found scissors, a steady hand and DON'T RUSH this part as you will when looking hard at the stickers see the clear edge.
After cleaning the areas of the van where the decals are to be applied with Prepsol or similar the decals were taped in position to the van.
Notice in the centre of all the stickers there is a 2x pieces of holding tape (masking tape) and there is also horizontal pieces of tape placed under the sticker running in line with the edge ot the clear. These line up tapes are to make sure when the sticker is laid down it is in the correct position and not high or low of where you need to be.
After checking everything looks OK
Make sure you have both sides taped in position before application to check you have the correct decal sections in place.
I noticed during the lay up and checking that some of the registration of the colours were a bit out, the outer band of yellow varied in thickness where the other coloured were over printed on it and was in some instaces thicker at the bottom or top compared to the end of the othe other matching sticker on the other panel. Maybe I got a dud set.... it has to be this way now.
So here is the install rundown. Get a hand spray bottle and fill it up with distilled water or very clean filtered water. Get some (for example) Johnsons baby shampoo which is PH neutral and add 2 drops to the water bottle.
The idea behind this is that the sticker can be removed during installation as many times as needed to get it in the correct position.
Also if you get dirt, hair fluff etc behind the sticker simply lift it off the surface, spray the water solution on it and rub/clean that area you wont damage the adhesive.
Starting at the back of the van untape the sticker to the 1/2 way point (or 2x taped section) and peel the backing off the sticker (the not sticky part) and tear or cut it away.
Spray the back of the sticky part of the decal with your water soap solution, does not matter how much.
Make up a squeegee you can use a credit car with a pice of soft cotton around it, I have a felt one, this stops any scratching of the paint and/or decal.
Lay the sticker in its position on the van paying attention to the line up tape and squegee out the water and any bubbles GENTLY from the centre to the end.
Dont worry if the edges do not stick 100% at first this will be addressed later
Now remove the centre holding tape and any other holding tape from the other 1/2 of the sticker and remove the backing, spray, squeegee etc - same as the 1st 1/2 of the decal and tuck any surplus around the corner into the door cavity.
Do the same for the front guard stickers.
This procedure is also used for the tail gate SANDMAN
Do the door last making sure the door section lines up with the other front and back sections.
NOTE, do not spray the water solution on the ends that have to be folded around the doors, body or guard, you want these to stick straight away when folded.
After the stickers are in postion get a heat gun or hair dryer.
With a rag, squeegee, finger tip make sure all the clear edges are stuck, you can use some heat with care to do this.
After the stickers were in position you will see they have a satin type finish and in some spots even a matt finish.
After leaving them for a few days even a week you can apply a good quality wax or paint finishing product to bring up the gloss on them. I used a Poor boys product EX-P sealant, brought the shine up nicely.
The instructions say you need to remove your door locks, I didnt find this to be the case, they do over hang a tad when installed but after you have used the heat gun and got them close to the lock get a sharp scapel or knife and trim that small over hang section off. Of course if you want still remove the door locks but its a pain and lots of work when you dont have to do it.
I also cut the centres out of the word SANDMAN as I didnt want to see any clear. Mainly inside the A, D and contoured around the S, M and N .I wouldn't recommend others do this unless you have some signwriting application tape to hold the bits together during installation!
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