Vehicle vinyl wrap

In 1926, Waldo Semon invented the vinyl still used today by introducing additives to PVC that made it flexible and easier to process.

[2] One of the earliest cosmetic vinyl treatments dates to the 1950s and an aftermarket product by Newhouse Automotive Industries of Los Angeles, California.

[4] The world's first total bus wrap was produced in 1991 by Contra Vision in New Zealand for the Pan Pacific Hotel.

At this time, German taxi companies were required by law to paint their fleets in a government-mandated color, beige.

KPMF documented after 3 years of taxi service was complete, the vinyl was removed leaving a "pristine and unscratched paint surface".

It wasn't long before bus wrap advertising was everywhere and the new form of vehicle graphics trickled down to smaller businesses and consumers.

As technology improved, companies like Avery Dennison, 3M and Oracal developed the use of air-channels that made the vinyl repositionable and allowed for bubble-free installation.

Proprietary company blends of polymer in the vinyl allowed the material to conform to compound curves, recesses, and corrugations through the use of heat guns and torches.

This See-through graphic technology originated in the 1980s, with the first dominant patent registered by a British company called Contra Vision.

[9] This durability of shape allows for predictability on application and in applying heat to relax the material back to its natural form after modest stretching.

Cast vinyl is less prone to shrinkage because stress (such as extrusion as in calendared films) is not applied to the material during the manufacturing process.

Calendered vinyl film or sheeting is manufactured by mixing powdered PVC, liquid softener and coloring agent into a molten dough-like mixture.

The mixture is then extruded through a die and pressed into an increasingly thin sheet using a series of hard pressure rollers, called calendering rolls.

When the material reaches the rollers, it passes through a series of decreasing gaps, which in turn increases the temperature and uniformity of the mixture.