Custom Paint and Graphics for West Covina

Sprayed graphics or vinyl: which one your vehicle should wear

Sprayed graphics are paint. The design is masked and shot in sequence, then buried under clear along with the base color. Nothing sits proud of the surface, nothing has an edge to catch, and the whole scheme ages at the same rate as the rest of the finish. That is what high line coaches wear from the factory, and it is the right answer any time the design uses soft transitions, fades or metallic accents.

Vinyl is applied over finished paint. It is faster, it is easier to change, and it is the only realistic option for detailed logos, photographic imagery and small lettering. The tradeoff is that vinyl has an edge, and an edge in inland Southern California sun eventually lifts. It also shields the paint under it, so a decal removed after ten years reveals a rectangle of less faded color.

Most jobs end up as a combination. Large color fields and sweeps get sprayed. Fine detail, logos and text go on as vinyl over the clear. We lay out the design so the vinyl elements sit where they can be replaced later without disturbing the sprayed work underneath.

• Sprayed: color sweeps, fades, metallic accents, anything meant to last as long as the paint
• Vinyl: logos, lettering, fine detail, imagery, anything likely to change
• Combined: sprayed base scheme with replaceable vinyl detail laid over the clear

Replacing a factory graphics package on a coach from the 2000s

Manufacturers stop supporting graphics packages long before the coaches stop running. Owners of mid 2000s Fleetwood, Coachmen, Thor and Forest River rigs regularly find that the original decal set is simply not available, and that the aftermarket reproduction available online is close but not correct. That leaves three paths.

The first is to reproduce the original artwork. We photograph and measure the existing scheme before removal, and the design can be redrawn and cut. This works best when at least one side of the vehicle still has intact graphics to reference. The second path is to spray the scheme in paint rather than replace it in vinyl, which costs more up front and lasts far longer. The third is to abandon the original design entirely and go to a solid color or a simpler modern scheme, which is what most owners of twenty year old coaches choose once they see the alternatives priced side by side.

Whichever path you pick, the panel underneath has to be made flat first. Twenty years of vinyl leaves a ghost ridge at every edge, and the gelcoat outside the decal has oxidized while the gelcoat under it has not. New graphics laid over that unprepared surface telegraph the old design through the new one within a season.

Removing twenty year old vinyl without wrecking what is underneath

Old decal removal is slow, unglamorous work and it is where most of the labor on a graphics job actually goes. The vinyl has usually lost its plasticizer, which means it no longer peels in sheets. It comes off in flakes the size of a fingernail. Heat softens it enough to lift, and plastic razors do the lifting because a steel blade will gouge gelcoat instantly.

The adhesive stays behind after the vinyl comes off, and it has to be dissolved rather than scraped. Different manufacturers used different adhesives, so the crew tests in an inconspicuous area before committing to a chemical. On a painted coach, aggressive solvent can soften the clear underneath, which turns a decal removal into a refinish.

What is left after removal is the ghost: a raised outline of the old design plus a color difference between the shielded area and the sun exposed area around it. On a gelcoat rig that gets wet sanded and polished, or primed and painted if the difference is severe. On a painted coach it gets block sanded and, in most cases, refinished. We show you this before we quote so the number makes sense.

Business lettering and identification on work vehicles

Cargo vans, box trucks, food trucks and service bodies carry company identification that has to read from a distance and survive daily use. The practical rules are simple. Contrast matters more than size. Simple block faces read better at speed than script. And placement should assume the vehicle will be seen from the rear and the sides far more often than from the front.

For operators running several vehicles, consistency is worth more than creativity. We build a layout template from a reference unit and apply it dimensionally to each vehicle in the group, adjusting only for body length and door placement. That way a van, a box truck and a service body all read as the same company rather than as three separate design exercises.

Removal matters as much as application. Vehicles leaving a fleet need the identification taken off completely, including the adhesive and the shielded color difference underneath. A poorly removed decal leaves a legible ghost of the old company name, which is a problem for the seller and for the buyer both. We do full removal with correction of the panel underneath rather than a peel and go.

Designing a scheme that can be repaired later

The best custom paint schemes are the ones that can be fixed after a parking lot incident without redoing the whole side. That means putting color transitions where the body already has a break: a molding line, a seam, the edge of a slide fascia, a body corner. A sweep that ends in the middle of a flat eight foot panel is beautiful until someone backs into it.

Layer count matters too. A scheme with five colors requires five masking cycles and five color changes, and the same is true for the repair. Reducing a design from five colors to three frequently produces something cleaner looking that costs meaningfully less to build and dramatically less to repair.

We also document everything. The formula for every color, the layout dimensions, the mask sequence and photographs of the finished vehicle go into the job file. Years later, when a rock takes out a section of the design, that documentation is the difference between a matched repair and a compromise.

How long graphics last in inland Southern California

Quality cast vinyl with a laminate over it holds up reasonably well, but inland Los Angeles County is a hard environment. Vehicles that live outdoors year round see steady ultraviolet exposure and heat cycling that neither calendered nor cast vinyl truly ignores. Horizontal and upward facing surfaces fail first, which on an RV means the tops of sweeps and anything on a slide fascia shoulder.

Sprayed graphics under clear behave like the rest of the paint, which is to say they last as long as the clear does. That is the practical argument for spraying rather than applying: on a coach you plan to keep, sprayed artwork does not become a separate maintenance item.

For either type, storage matters more than product selection. A rig kept under a cover or a carport holds graphics far longer than one parked open. Washing technique matters as well, since a pressure washer aimed at a vinyl edge will start a lift that then grows every time the vehicle moves at speed. Wash graphics with a mitt, and keep the wand off the edges.