The Dragon Wagon

When I think of an animal named Leopold, a demure tabby or congenial basset hound springs to mind. William Woosley, proprietor of Fort Wayne, IN-based JW Signs, conjures a much different mental picture with the name – he so monikered this fire-breathing, scaly dragon that resides on the wrap that adorns his Ford F-150 shop truck.

GraphX Direct’s (Fort Wayne) Jason Price designed the program using Fellers’ (Tulsa) The Bad Wrap vehicle-wrapping templates and Adobe® Photoshop® software. JW Signs outfit the program using Avery Dennison Graphics & Reflective Products Div. (Painesville, OH) MPI 1005 EZ RS glossy, cast-vinyl film, which it protected with Avery's DOL 1000 glossy overlaminate. Clear Focus Imaging Inc. (Santa Rosa, CA) One Way Vision™ window film adorns some window panels.

To output the system, Woosley’s shop used its Mimaki USA (Suwanee, GA) JV3-160SP solvent-ink printer. Prior to applying the vinyl, JW Signs coated challenging areas with 3M Graphics Market Center (St. Paul, MN) Primer 94 adhesion-promoting agent. Installation entailed conforming the vinyl with 3M’s Gold squeegees wrapped in 3M’s PTFE glass-cloth tape and a BernzOmatic (Wilmington, OH) trigger-start torch, which helped smooth the film around curves and other difficult areas.