There are times when installers have to apply extra material, for example, stripes, on top of a vinyl wrap film for certain projects. This is when you HAVE TO understand how things work with surface energy.
Knowing which type of vinyl wrap film has high or low surface energy can help you make your decision accordingly, which will also help you avoid making costly mistakes.
For instance, if you try to apply extra material on top of a vinyl wrap film and work it around without knowing the surface energy of the wrap, the film might tear as you pull it. But having a clear mind about the extent of surface energy for your film can protect you from these failures.
To rank the surface energy of different kinds of vinyl wrap films from high to low, gloss film is usually the one that has the highest surface energy, and satin film comes next, matte film then follows, as well as textured film for the last.
If you are dealing with gloss film, you do not need to prep much because of its high surface energy. But it is always good to wipe over the vinyl wrap film with soap water or alcohol before you apply something else on it.
If you are handling vinyl wrap film other than gloss, to achieve a better result, do not forget to prep them before your application, because they have lower surface energy.
Some might argue that they mostly do not have to do this kind of overlapping projects, so it is unnecessary for them to dig into this surface energy thing. But the fact is that surface energy does not only exist on vinyl wrap film. It actually rules the same on different objects.
For example, windows normally have very high surface energy. If your do not know about it, and your wrap grabs it under low temperature, you might accidentally crack it – So sometimes you might want to try lowering down the surface energy of the object that you are going to wrap (Masking tape can surely help you with this).
So to sum up, it is crucial for wrappers to understand the surface energy of different types of films and even different parts of a vehicle. If you can manage to do that, surely you will achieve a better finish with a wrap that has better durability.
