Going Savage

Keith Vu, senior project manager for Savage Wraps (San Jose, CA), has developed a 24-year-long passion for signage and graphics. During his career, he’s worked as a screenprinting and cut-vinyl-graphics provider. Over the last seven years, he’s adapted his career to the vehicle-graphics market.

After having worked as an apprentice and journeyman for several years, he opened his seven-person shop last year. Business has boomed; during that span, they’ve fabricated more than 100 wraps (plus a smattering of decals) and are transitioning into a larger, 3,000-sq.-ft. shop.

Savage Wraps begins its process by wiping down a vehicle – which they require customers wash the night before – separately with alcohol and vinegar. For vehicles still matted with hardcore grime, he’ll use 3M’s PrepSol. If it’s not suitable to be eaten from, it’s not clean enough, Vu said.

Typically, he allocates eight hours for the shop’s two lead designers to formulate a concept and bills $350 to $600 for this phase. He said, “Typically, we charge $10.50 per sq. ft. on a wrap, which means an average total cost of $2,400 to $2,900. The charge for the design is usually the largest variable when we encounter a client who’s indecisive or very picky about their wrap’s content.”

Currently, the shop works with Arlon’s DPF 6000XRP air-release media because of its combination of conformability and price point. Currently, the company prints with both Mimaki JV3 and Mutoh ValueJet 1304 solvent-ink printers. Vu said, “I’ve heard lots of talk about printing with latex inks, but, in my experience, it’s better to stick with what works until you know all the kinks are worked out with new technology.”

Savage Wraps put its experience and can-do attitude to work for Black Hawk Customs, a Sunnyvale, CA-based business that specializes in supplying ATVs, snowmobiles and other powersport vehicles for current and former military personnel. The client provided the images – many of them depict his experience as a power-sports buff while stationed abroad with the Service – but placing such details as the Black Hawk helicopter’s gun turrets, engines and rotors required more than 70 hours of design time for the truck and trailer.

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The shop produced approximately 1,000 sq. ft. of graphics for a truck-trailer combination. To complement the Arlon 6000X-clad body (for this job, Vu speced the conventional film rather than air-release media because he needed a film with better hold-down ability), installers applied Solvex perforated window media and Lamex overlaminate.

They applied material using 3M’s Roller S and G Force Products’ RollePro vinyl applicators. For spot checking and securing the film after heating, the shop also uses thick-foam paint rollers. He said, “About 20% of our shop tools are items we’ve improvised. It helps save money to be creative instead of automatically buying something off the shelf to fill a need.”

Vu said a major project challenge involved negotiating the trailer’s roof to accurately place the seams. To allow wiggle room for accurate placement, Savage Wraps prints wraps with 10 in. of slack in all directions.
He also offered a final piece of advice for would-be wrappers: “Nobody wants to work with a know-it-all SOB. You have to be willing to listen to your customer and nurse their ideas from a napkin sketch through to the finished product. Wrap with diligence and passion.”