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A Lair on Wheels

An Idaho Signs Now helps a teenager rule the road.

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While some newly minted, high-school graduates merely receive a watch, video-game console or a copy of Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go!, one lucky Twin Falls, ID teen received a newly wrapped 2011 Chevrolet Camaro to cap off his pomp and circumstance.
 

The customer, Kimberton Haynes, traveled more than 100 miles to enlist Rob Rule and his Boise-based Signs Now franchise to wrap the car for his son. Rule runs Boise’s longest-tenured Signs Now shop (franchise number 11 with the company), which has operated continuously in the same Fairview Ave. location since 1987. Haynes insisted the wrap be completed within two weeks.
 

Haynes bought the car, and he anticipated his son would want a wrap similar to the Monster energy drink car-wrap design created in 2009. Although Rule wasn’t sure of the original creator, the site where he found it attributed the image file to Bruno Design, a Brazilian graphic-arts firm. Of course, a few tweaks were in order to customize it. Using Adobe’s Creative Suite software, Rule, the franchise’s third owner, altered the wrap with lime-green “rally” stripes to replace factory-issued, white stripes, and a snarling, green dragon, which he found through a web search.
 

After the customer approved the tweaks, the shop began printing the job using 60-in.-wide 3M™ Controltac™ IJ180-10C vinyl with Comply v3 air-release technology on a Mimaki JV3-160 SP solvent-ink printer with Mimaki’s SS2 proprietary ink system. Rule said his shop gives his wraps’ color an extra kick by printing at 720 x 1,440 dpi instead “of the standard 720 x 720 resolution used by other area shops.”
 

Rule conceded the shop wanted to use Avery’s MPI 1005 Easy Apply RS Supercast 2-mil material, but noted none of his regional suppliers had 60-in.-wide rolls of Avery material available. Signs Now topcoated the wrap with Avery’s DOL 1360 Supercast glossy-finish topcoat, which it pressure-applied to the surface with a Seal 62 Ultra S dual-function laminator.
 

Rule and his three-person staff – one of whom is his wife, Laura – laid out each side of the Camaro’s side wraps as single, 58 x 140-in, horizontal panels. The hood and trunk stripes were printed together as a solid-color swatch and plotted after lamination, and then installed in pairs.
 

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After having prepped the surface with 3M’s Primer 94 adhesion promoter and an isopropyl-alcohol rubdown, Signs Now installed the wrap with a torch – which Rule says he prefers over heat guns because their instantaneous heat enables more efficient work – and Geek Wraps’ soft-edged squeegees, which have gained popularity among many wrap installers.
 

Now, the junior Haynes will arrive for his first semester at Boise St. Univ. in “extreme” style.
 

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