Wrapping Door with Wired Handle in One Piece of Vinyl Wrap Film
There are times when wrappers come across with wired door handle, which cannot go off as it is wired into the vehicle. This has made it challenging to wrap around with vinyl wrap film, where some wrappers would choose to do an inlay in the end. But here is a simple solution for you to wrap it in one piece, which involves the pre-stretch technique.
First of all, you will have to prep the door handle before doing anything. Clean it thoroughly for sure, and put masking tape on it to lower down its surface energy, which will help you handle it much more easily (If you are not sure why surface energy matters so much yet, check out one of the previous articles here: Why Surface Energy Matters for Vinyl Film Wrapping), then put the panel roughly on where it is going to be – Magnets can be a great help for you here.
Once you have finished the setup, you can mark out a hole of the shape of the wired spot. You need to trace out exactly where the vinyl wrap film will go, and cut it out. The trick here is that you have to make a hole that cannot be bigger than the actual spot of the wired section, or too small – otherwise, the door handle cannot go through it.
After you take the pre-cut piece of the hole off, you can hold the vinyl wrap film up and remove the backing paper – Do not remove the entire paper though, just remove enough of it. The best way to do it is to do it halfway of the side from where the door handle is. And you can cut off the backing paper with your knife, then bride the vinyl wrap film over to an open window of the door that you are going to wrap.
The next step is to use your heat gun to heat up the area around the hole on the material that you made. Once it is warm enough, take your two hands to fully spread (360 degrees) the material around the hole evenly – Make sure you do this when the material is still warm, though! This is technically a pre-stretch that you will make.
Now, as the hole is stretched enough, you can fit the loose handle through it. This is when you will find the masking tape useful, as the surface energy of the handle is lower down and will not grip the material crazily – This is very necessary, especially when you have a vinyl wrap film at some point that comes with aggressive adhesive. Slide the material safely underneath the handle to match up the actual hole of the film to the particular wired spot of the body.
When the entire panel is applied onto the surface, heat the area around the hole with your heat gun again, and let the hole shrink back to the original shape, where it will fit exactly to the shape of the wired section now.
As soon as you have come to this stage, you can easily create glass and wrap the rest of the door. When you finish everything, you just need to remove the masking tape. And it is done! By using this technique, it will save you from a lot of frustration and even time. Try it out next time if you have not. Happy wrapping.
