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Wrapping aftermarket fairings - Picture thread

9K views 86 replies 17 participants last post by  Ninja_1000 
#1 ·
I figured since I was going to attempt to wrap the Ninja 1000 plastics, I would share my suffering with all of you! :D I have wrapped a few things before - chrome delete window trim on my BMW, and covering the fake woodgrain dash and trim inserts with a fake carbon fiber in the same BMW... lol. But most of those parts were flat and straight and on the beginner level as far as skill needed to pull off. I've spent many hours on YouTube now learning some of the tricks of the trade... but actually applying what I've seen to real world parts will be the real learning experience. For some background, my bike is a 2012 that was Matte Metallic Silver/Black. After a lowside riding the Tail of the Dragon in 2014 (I think), I replaced the MM Silver with Black mid-fairings from the 2013 model to make an all black bike as shown here. This is how she looked prior to my highside incident on the racetrack last month. Only the upper right section of the fairings survived unscathed... everything else, including the tank and windscreen, were smashed, cracked, broken, or heavily scratched. So this is where the journey begins...

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#31 ·
I'm taking a styling cue from the Z1000 of the same vintage and having green edges with a black center on the headlight cowl. On a side note: This metallic black is similar to the Kawasaki black, but is actually darker when viewed side by side. The Kawi color pulls a little more blue than this wrap. Knifeless tape is some awesome stuff! Makes cutting super straight lines easy once you learn the trick to get it started! Second pic shows the cut line down from the top to the corner of the headlamp opening.

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#33 ·
Both of the corners of the headlight had exposed white cowling showing. I'm sure I will re-wrap this part one day, but I decided to just work through the issues I had and finish the piece - for both the learning experience and practice... and to be sure I have enough material to finish the rest of the bike! I just made a template with masking tape and cut two small pieces of black to inlay into the inside area to cover my mistake. Sorry for the blurry photo of the inlay piece... As you will see in the photos of the part outside, if I never point it out, no one will ever notice.

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#34 ·
All these angles focused right where the two lenses meet was a real challenge, but I think it came out fairly well considering that I have never wrapped anything with such intense detail. And I did it with a single piece (yeah, yeah, except where I over shrank it - but it would have been a single piece save that!). But you can hardly see the mistake once the light obscures it.

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#35 · (Edited)
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that none of the detail lines lift after a few days. I was super careful to make sure there was no tension when I laid those angles in. But I'm a beginner and we'll see how it goes. I'll show you if any of it fails once it has had a few heat/cool cycles. The sun really keeps the glue lines from showing as they get lost in the metallic reflection. It's another thing that I am probably overreacting to because I'm a little OCD about doing perfect work... I can't wait to get this bike finished and get some "glamour" shots of her around town!

You may notice some of my hand painted urban graphics on the tank in the second photo... detailed shots of that coming once I finish it.

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Just kidding, Those "graphics" are just the reflection of the peak of my house on tank! :p :ROFLMAO:
 
#38 ·
I understood he was showing us what he was happy to do for us? Just gotta get your fairings to him :)
 
#40 ·
I'll probably never do a project like this but kudo's to @Black Sheep for taking the time to detail what he's doing and picturing it for us. What a fantastic DIY project and great result. Nice work sir!
 
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#41 ·
Damn man. This is lookin good!! You're right about the lines too. If you didn't point them out, I'd never notice them.
 
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#42 ·
Thanks so much for sharing CKWraps YouTube channel - that guy (Chris) is awesome. After seeing this thread and watching of bunch of Chris's videos, I decided to try vinyl myself.

For anyone interested - It's worth mentioning how different various vinyl wraps are. Vvivid XPO, Hexis, 3M 1080/2080/DI-NOC, Avery Dennison SW900, and others are all very different to work with. When I tested a piece of Vvivid XPO on this part (photo), it quickly became apparent that Vvivid XPO was never going to work as desired, at least not without an advanced skill-set. Next, I tried Avery Dennison SW900 and found it was much, much easier. I made a few butt joints in the carbon fiber using knifeless tape but later, when I ran into trouble, I made simple overlap joints that are nearly invisible in the carbon fiber pattern - you have to look VERY closely to see the joints and they don't detract at all from the look. If I do fake carbon fiber again, I'll just do it the easy, simple, and lazy way and use lots of vinyl pieces (probably 7 pieces of vinyl instead of only four shown here) with simple overlaps. One of the ways you can tell that carbon fiber is fake is the lack of breaks in the carbon fiber pattern - real carbon doesn't flex much in two directions the way vinyl does. REAL carbon fiber in a complex shape has layups of simply bent pieces in a variegated fiber pattern so why go to a lot of trouble to make your fake carbon fiber look less real by bending it into complex shapes? Lesson learned. I can't say enough good things about Avery Dennison SW900 vinyl though - I'm pretty sure other vinyls would have ended up in the trash.

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#43 ·
Interesting to see you've polished your wheels. I'm kind of an "old school" guy and still like some bling so I like that look. My last bike was a ZZR1200 and I did the same thing to those wheels. Since that bike was silver with some metallic charcoal body pieces, I sprayed the spoke area with a charcoal metallic paint which matched the body pieces perfectly. I now have a 2021 1000sx and it is pretty much all black. I am getting used to the all black look and I know that's a more current look but I have been debating on pulling the wheels and going through the process once again. After seeing yours I'm thinking it would be a good winter project. I also like the look of the "M4" slippons. I haven't been able to find them for the 2021 yet. Leo Vince has a "black" version that I like but they seem to be out of stock these days. Anyway, good luck with you wrapping project.
 
#46 ·
I'm sure the vinyl might not be as durable as the paint Ford uses on the new f150, but compared to what Kawasaki uses, I'll bet on the vinyl. Especially if you factor in repairing small damage. Our paint is so thin, it's very difficult to repair without prepainting the piece. I can't do that in my garage.

Look at the delivery or service vehicles that have high quality wraps. They look pretty good. Even in Utah and our salt covered roads.


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#48 ·
I have to say that I've gotten much faster as I have learned to work the vinyl. This metallic green by Hexis is much easier to work with than the metallic black I have made by 3M. I got this done in one piece and cut the edges with knifeless tape.

I decided to split the interior area into 3 pieces since the angles are sharp at the front and it has a natural separation in the stator opening. I could not get the knifeless tape to turn at such a sharp radius, so I left the "point" to be cut by hand later.

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#49 ·
Now while I cursed the metallic black vinyl from 3M, their matte black was very easy to stretch and conform and I was surprised by how easily it molded to the fairing shapes. I made the seam from the front of the circle to the rear of the circle right where the bolt hole goes. So only a very small seam exists and it pretty much disappears.

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#50 ·
One of the issues I had was getting the vinyl to stretch into and stay in this sharp corner. I think some wrappers use adhesive promoter or something to keep it from lifting. As you can see in the first picture, I ended up cutting the material to get it to sit down and it gapped when I post heated it to set the adhesive. I just added a small piece and then trimmed the point by hand. I used some precision masking tape to guide the start of the shape But like the knifeless tape, it would not conform to such a tight radius. It did provide me a guide though and it came out good enough for me.

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#51 ·
The back half was a bit more challenging than I had imagined. And on both the lower fairing pieces I had to start over on the matte black pieces at least once. You need to understand in what ways the material will stretch and shrink in order conform to the part you are wrapping. Sometimes you have to have a plan to start from a certain spot and work out from there. Because I found myself about 80% done with a section on more than one occasion, before coming to the realization that I can't make the vinyl cover the remaining 20% without bunching, wrinkling, or tearing. (And once I actually burned through it by adding too much heat!). You just have to pull off the offending piece and try again!

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#52 · (Edited)
The opposite side was much the same and features the deepest recess of all the bolt holes. I pushed it down with a 17mm socket! I cut too much material out at the bottom as well... I thought the grommet went edge-to-edge for some reason?!?!?! I added a circular piece at the bottom later and it came out fine - I'm sure I'm the only one who would even notice!

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#53 ·
Both pieces came out really well despite the challenges of the changing angles and the "points" that I had to trim by hand. Although this is my first time wrapping, I have made all my previous fairings the same with matte black in the interior spaces... I just used Plastidip instead. Of the two, Plastidip was much, much, much faster. But the wrap looks 100% better.

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#54 ·
Just a comparison of the the factory part and my completed piece. You can really see the difference in the metallic in this picture. The wrap has much less depth in the finish. FYI, I never owned a green version, but I got this part from Ebay to use with my "Winter Fairings".

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#55 · (Edited)
So... you are probably asking yourself what the hell is he talking about when he mentions "winter fairings"... :unsure: Well this is part of the winter collection - the heat deflector has been removed so all that heat from the engine will hit me in the legs and wash up my torso... in theory. I have yet to put the set together because it requires some additional support due to removing some of the structural rigidity and mounting points. It was also a styling experiment because this bike looks really fat when viewed from the rear - and not in the good way. The heat deflectors really add some width to the bike. I have some photos somewhere with the cutaway fairings mounted and the bike is very slim and sexy... 🤣🤣🤣

Anyway, I know the upper fairings are going to be a challenge to wrap, so I'm using this as a test platform. It currently has black Plastidip with a metallic sparkle dip color sprayed over the top. This dip is 8 years old and still looks like the day I sprayed it on... my transition line was flawless as well... ;)

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#57 · (Edited)
In fact, the finish underneath is perfectly protected and looks brand new! So lets see if I can wrap the top portion in one piece and get a decent finish... after the headlight cowling, my confidence is low... note that the 3M 2080 Gloss Metallic Black comes with a protective film over the top. So in the bottom picture, the texture of the finish is the overwrap.

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#58 ·
That's crazy. If you just started, on page 3, you could lie and say you had the green painted and you are using the black as an accent. In photos, it looks like paint.
 
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