How to Get Rid of Adhesive Lines on Door Handle Cup

As the car wrap industry developing more and more quickly, the features of adhesive on vinyl wrap films have changed too.

And this has created challenge for wrappers because what would often happen now is that when you apply a material to a section of vehicle, you do it in the same way that you have done for years, but the warp job turns out with tons of adhesive lines showing up on the film, which totally lower down the wrap quality that you are supposed to achieve.

Today, we are going to introduce a technique that helps you out of this situation, where adhesive lines can be eliminated, your wrap job quality gets guaranteed, even more, it will save some install times for you too.

For the case study, we are taking the section of the door handle cup in a car. Just for comparison in order to show you why the struggle happens, let’s go through what most wrappers do in this case first:

The standard for most installers to do here is to take a panel, bridge the material around the door handle cup. And then they work the material just as normal with the application gloves on. So they squeegee the film down with their hands, and with overlapping strokes.

Normally, this is a very good technique that would help you apply the material on a section evenly without getting bubbles or wrinkles. So they work all the way through in this way to the top and get the air out there.

If they are doing a full print job, what they do here might be slightly ok in terms of the outcome. But it becomes a disaster for color change jobs as the adhesive changed over the past few years.

What happens is that every time the installer pauses and makes an overlapping stroke, it creates an adhesive line there. Even though it is behind the film, whenever you look up closely, you will see those messy lines going all around, looking like a really bad paint job.

Of course, though, it is not because the installer has done anything wrong, but just because the features of adhesive have changed. And this gets the adhesive set up right away whenever it hits a tension point, which means the trace of your strokes will show up clearly.

So the client might ask you for a re-do if this happens, as it is totally messed-up and the quality is undoubtedly low. To avoid this frustration, it is better to get prep before working out this recessed area.

So clean the surface up first, apparently, and then you can put a little masking tape on the side of the cup where there is a tiny enclosed area, to help the air get out later. Put just enough of it there, just enough that the material can hold it up.

As soon as the prep is done, you are ready to wrap now. Apply the wrap to the section as normal, bridge it, tack it and surround the area. But the differences this time are that you give it a little bit of heat to the material, and you shall NOT work with your application gloves for what is coming next.

Once the material is set with the heat, take both of your thumbs and lick them. Then, work the material down with your thumbs out of the recessed area all the way to the top in one stroke. Notice: ONE stroke without overlapping.

It is kind of the same logic as we keep saying: working in the recessed area first and doing the flat section last. So you should go straight to the area inside the cup. (But in this case, as you work all the way through, the flat part is done as well).

There is no bubble or wrinkle, and no adhesive lines show up as you do all things in one shot this time. As soon as everything is done, just pull out the masking tape on the side.

In this way, your install time is increased because you do not even have to wear application gloves and everything is done in one movement, and the quality is very promising. You do not have to worry about anything coming up on the warp.

But just do not forget to clean the surface up when it is done. Apart from this, you have got this annoying adhesive problem solved!