Got my hood black-out decal put on last night. As mentioned, it was purchased from CI over a year ago and had been in the shipping tube since then. It had the same wrinkles or puckering as mar70challenger mentioned with his once it was laid flat. One thing I did was roll the decal back up and kept it in tube until the day I decided to apply it. This way the wrinkles were able to smooth back out once it was rolled up again.
Couldn't decide on which method to use:
1) Saw how dayley / challenger and others used the fold method by applying half of the decal at a time. This definitely works best to get it positioned and not have to worry about moving it once you start. The problem was the directions from the manufacturer of the decal said to NOT get the backing paper wet. I knew that would be unavoidable if I tried this method.
2) The method I chose was to completely take off the backing paper and wet the decal with a lot of soapy water (you also need to prep the hood by using alcohol or a wax and grease remover, tack any dust, and then spray and wipe the soapy water solution on the hood). The soapy water on both the decal and hood give you time to "float" the decal and move it around and measure your side-to-side and other measurements.
Thought I had it positioned just right - but then noticed it had moved and even after starting to squeege water out was still able to lift decal and re-position until it was right. I would recommend using the vertical center mark that dayley / challenger shows in his post and maybe also doing one horizontally with points on the hood before your remove backing. This would take a lot of the guess work out of getting it centered.
First pic shows pre-mask still on decal.
Second pic taking off pre-mask next day.
Third pic - final result. Turned out almost perfect! Only a small bubble by hood lip.
Topic: Challenger Hood Decal - Anyone that's done one - is one they sent me messed up? (Read 14586 times)
