Vinyl decal swoosh mod

[jeff]

I'm in process of making some custom vinyl decals for my car and thought I'd share. Note, I completely stole this idea from [MENTION=1313]BRGT350[/MENTION] so all credit goes to him. I saw his car in a thread and got the inspiration. I've ordered some graphite grey vinyl, it has a bit of a metallic look to match the grey accents I've already put on the car. It's close to the wheel color. You can see the lower lip on the bottom bumper in the pics below painted that color. Anyhow that's the color these swooshes will be but for now I just did a mock-up with blue painter's tape to get an idea of how it would look. I did consider red to match the other red bits on my car (emblems, calipers, Ford overlays) but that might be a bit loud for my taste.

BRGT350's swooshes are a little more dramatic and are two-tone, but I'm going for a bit more subtle look. They fit the lines of the car perfectly and I think the final product will be really nice. The vinyl should arrive in the next week or so and once I get them installed I'll post the final product.

Anyhow check out my pics and give me some love or hate, I can take it.......

EDIT:
Please see my build thread for pictures of this mod due to Photobucket debacle....newer pics are there.

 

[CanadianGuy]

Looks good. One wee suggestion. I have seen and love that on the rear door the vinyl has the ST logo cut out.

 

[John9851]

Looks good Jeff.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I think that'll look real good. Have you done work with vinyl before, and are you doing it yourself? I've never touched the stuff (as far as cars go) but I'm seeing more and more neat stuff happen with it.

 

[LilPartyBox]

looks good. not over the top. I was considering doing the same but using the existing fold on the doors and fender as a guide. But then I remembered I want mine a sleeper for now. i like the design your doing better actually

 

[jeff]

Thanks guys I really appreciate you chiming in, with stuff like this you never know if you're way off so the positive feedback is encouraging.

Looks good. One wee suggestion. I have seen and love that on the rear door the vinyl has the ST logo cut out.

I did consider that and have seen this done before though without the swoosh...however there are already 6 ST logos on the car (1 front, 1 back, 4 on wheel caps) and I think it will be overkill if I add two more. If I didn't have the Velossatech wheel caps with the ST logo I might do as you suggest though, it does look good.

I think that'll look real good. Have you done work with vinyl before, and are you doing it yourself? I've never touched the stuff (as far as cars go) but I'm seeing more and more neat stuff happen with it.

I have worked a good bit with vinyl before and I am doing it myself....I'm an artist and have all the right tools to make clean cuts so it's not a big deal. Plus vinyl is pretty forgiving, and it's cheap so if you mess up it's easy to just cut a new piece. In my case I'm making templates and then the first one serves as the beta version, if it's off I simply build off of it making corrections until it's perfect. That's how I did my headlight overlays, it took a few different versions before I got it perfect.

 

[BRGT350]

Looks pretty good and pretty much how I started mine. Played around with MS Paint, then taped stuff on the car, and finally moved to vinyl. I looked at going the Cobb route with the straight stripes, which would have matched my Mustang nicely or the Mountune route that followed the body lines. In the end, I went with the body lines. I also thought about cutting the vinyl on the rear door in front of the rear tire in a checker pattern, like how Porsche does on their track cars. I think Sharkworks does the same on their Porsches.

2015 Ford Fiesta ST by Bryan Redeker, on Flickr

2015 Ford Fiesta ST Martini Racing 090 by Bryan Redeker, on Flickr

 

[jeff]

Quick update, vinyl arrived yesterday afternoon and sure enough I was up at 10pm fitting some test decals that I made. I'm gonna recut a few of these for a better fit but here's what we have so far....the color is real subtle and I might go with something a bit lighter for more contrast but maybe not, I'll see how I like it after looking at the car for a few weeks and decide. My goal for this was subtlety so this might be fine.

I apologize for low quality iPhone pics, but you'll get the idea:

 

[AL=x]

Looking good, liking the subtle approach.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

My goal for this was subtlety so this might be fine.

Yeah, that is subtle. So subtle, in fact, that they could almost be mistaken for reflections of the parking stripe on the asphalt. I'd say mission accomplished!

Sent from my Spaceship

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

Don't get me wrong, it looks good. Kind of a trick on the eyes, makes me look twice.

Sent from my Spaceship

 

[CanadianGuy]

[MENTION=3995]jeff[/MENTION] That looks amazing. I must have mis-read the original post as I tough the blue was what you were going for. Now I realise that was just a painters tape mock up.

 

[ModBargains]

This looks great! Nice and subtle, not over the top. Could have been an OEM option IMO

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

[MENTION=4948]Spaceman_Spiff[/MENTION] That looks amazing. I must have mis-read the original post as I tough the blue was what you were going for. Now I realise that was just a painters tape mock up.

[MENTION=2253]CanadianGuy[/MENTION] i take no credit, i think you meant [MENTION=3995]jeff[/MENTION]

 

[CanadianGuy]

[MENTION=2253]CanadianGuy[/MENTION] i take no credit, i think you meant [MENTION=3995]jeff[/MENTION]

Note to self. Less drinking @ work.


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Edited my original post.

 

[jeff]

Hey thanks for all the love guys, got the other side done today. Here are some better pics. I might end up recutting/replacing one or two of them that aren't to my standards, but they're 95% there.

Measuring and cutting and prep and R&D etc. was about 3 hours here.

Install was about 1 hour...40 minutes drivers side then 20 minutes passenger. Passenger went much faster once I figured it out by doing drivers side first.

Cost was $19.

I think I like it! A lot!

 

[BRGT350]

Looks really nice!! Took less time than my year worth of designing, test fitting, redesign, test fitting again, and then creating the final product. Much cheaper too!

 

[jeff]

Looks really nice!! Took less time than my year worth of designing, test fitting, redesign, test fitting again, and then creating the final product. Much cheaper too!

Thanks man. It's been a few weeks and I'm really liking it. When the sun hits the car it really stands out. I have a few friends who are car guys who I see a few times a week, they all thought it looked great in person.

BTW it cost me $12 not $19, I was incorrect.

NEXT UP - I just reordered another 5 feet. I've decided to try dual racing stripes on the hood (the 2 and 4 of the 5 sections left to right, the ones with the wiper spray nozzle). I'll post here or start another thread if it turns out well.

 

[John9851]

Looks good Brother !!!! I haven't had time to put your overlays on yet lol.

 

[jeff]

Fellers....

After the success of my vinyl decal shoosh mod, I've decided to attempt some vinyl racing stripes on my hood. Here's my pattern/design:

I used some of the same graphite gray colored vinyl that I used on my side swooshes. Unfortunately this did not work - the piece of vinyl was so large that it proved difficult to apply neatly. So back to the drawing board. I've worked with Plasti-dip in the past and it's great stuff. I'm looking into some ideas and techniques to get the right color and clean lines, I'll report back if I have success!