Rebody Oh no. It's not another 507 Rebody. Oh yes it is!

[10stb]

Cool. Does the painter have any explanation?

Took 2 and a half months and to be honest, I was done with him by the end if it.

Just putting it down to experience.

 

[Dxbolton]

I’m looking at dual metallising now which seems to be chrome on plastic but I think most companies only do large batches for car companies. A project for winter

 

[Park Jong Hyuk]

Your bumper. there's joins. How many pieces is your wrap? I tried doing it in one piece but it really didn't want to stretch that much. I'm reluctant to do it in multiple pieces. I'm thinking now that I might do the top in one piece and another on the bottom and then put a rubber strip around the middle to cover the join. But I also found that using the soft felt covered spreading tool on the vinyl left marks and light scratches that don't polish out. So I'm beginning to think that wrap might not be a longer term solution.

The wrapping is over 10 pieces. And the gloss is not that great. Before spraying, you 'must' pre-treat with black gloss mixed with hardener. Then spray chrome spray very thinly from a distance so that it doesn't turn gray. The thinner in the spray dissolves the black gloss and all the gloss disappears. Spray very thinly so that the thinner doesn't stay.

 

[Duncodin]

Having a go at wrapping - but as per usual I just go straight in without reading up on how to do it

Turns out there's a thin plastic film over the surface of the sheet that protects the gloss surface during transport/packing. You're supposed to peal it off before trying to use the vinyl otherwise it won't stretch properly. Suffice to say I didn't peal it off. d'oh!

Anyway. The chromy-glossy-ness is good.

Excuse the mucky hand marks

Can't see it in the picture but there's creases all the way along the bottom of the bumper so I can't leave it like that.

(a) Need more practise.
(b) Need to remember to peal off the protective cover
(c) Need more vinyl because I used it all up in the first attempt.

But I think it'll look OK eventually

 

[Park Jong Hyuk]

The quality is very good. Where did you buy it? I want to buy it too.

 

[Pond]

Having a go at wrapping - but as per usual I just go straight in without reading up on how to do it

View attachment 321947

Turns out there's a thin plastic film over the surface of the sheet that protects the gloss surface during transport/packing. You're supposed to peal it off before trying to use the vinyl otherwise it won't stretch properly. Suffice to say I didn't peal it off. d'oh!

Anyway. The chromy-glossy-ness is good.

View attachment 321949

Excuse the mucky hand marks

View attachment 321951

Can't see it in the picture but there's creases all the way along the bottom of the bumper so I can't leave it like that.

(a) Need more practise.
(b) Need to remember to peal off the protective cover
(c) Need more vinyl because I used it all up in the first attempt.

But I think it'll look OK eventually

If you can get the wrap wrinkle-free on a complex structure like a bumper, I will come down to Wales and shake you by the hand (and buy you lots of beer).

 

[Duncodin]

The quality is very good. Where did you buy it? I want to buy it too.

Sorry. Don't know. Somebody bought it for me. I'll look see if I can find out.

 

[Duncodin]

If you can get the wrap wrinkle-free on a complex structure like a bumper, I will come down to Wales and shake you by the hand (and buy you lots of beer).

I don't think it's possible to do it in a single piece. Maybe the standard coloured vinyl would stretch enough to do i one piece but the chrome stuff doesn't stretch as much. Maybe an experienced wrapper could do it but I'll never get that experience.

But I do think I can get it with two pieces. One on top side and one on the underside with a join around the front. Maybe a stick on rubber strip to cover the join.

I need to buy more vinyl then try again. Also need a space heater because wrapping chrome in winter is like trying to wrap the sunday roast in tin foil without creasing it.

 

[Dxbolton]

I tried and found I can’t wrap.
I did the underside first, then the top side.
I did think that starting at the corners was the correct thing to do as that is where max stretch will be needed.
I started elsewhere and found Ideally I needed to shrink the corners.which you can’t do.
good luck
Ps I bought 3M chrome wrap off EBay

 

[Foglem]

A hair dryer and soapy water is useful. You can use a credit card to "squeegee" out wrinkles and such. Intricate bends can challenging because the wraps can only stretch so much before they will tear. You can use a razor blade to alleviate some of the folding where curves/radius is needed.

I have wrapped all of my gauge surrounds, shifter surround, interior door pulls, custom light fixtures and license plate light.

It does take practice and a few tries before you start figuring out how to handle it properly.

 

[ruan]

Take an offcut from your wrap and see the effect of heat on it (it will be different for each manufacturer), you should find that it shrinks slightly with heat, so you don't want to heat it too much before fitting it, unless you need that section pre shrunk. Also has anyone tried Knifeless Tape to get better joints?

 

[ruan]

Just tested a piece of the chrome wrap that I am going to use, when cold a 23cm strip will stretch by 3cm before it breaks, with heat it will stretch 5cm before it breaks, with only minor loss of shine. That is more than I expected and I don't expect to get the same amount of stretch when I apply it to a surface.

 

[mittaw]

State as at early December 2024

View attachment 323839

View attachment 308531




My kit arrived in November 2023. For the first month I didn't touch the kit. Concentrated on the mucky underneath stuff since then. Rear beam bushes. New brake disks. Hand brake cable. Bit of welding and whatever else I fancied doing while under there.

During the holidays I turned my attention to the body. First thing I wanted to fix was the left hand headlight surround. Other Tribute 507 builders have mentioned it. There's a glitch in the mould and the left hand headlight mounting surface is bent.

I decided to do all of my fixin in the lower half of the surround where, I reckon, the bulk of the problem is.

First I cut a crescent around the whole lower half to allow the headlight bowl to be fitted which pulled the surround/ring vertical. Then cut strips in the panel below the light and pushed the strips up and back to meet the surround in it's new position.

You can see by the size of the cut how big the problem is. It's not just a mm that needed sanding off.

View attachment 286329

Bonded it all into place with fibre glass behind.

I need to do work below to fit the indicators so preferred doing the work to rectify the headlight below the light so not messing with the top at all

Indicators next.

This looks gorgeous!!!

 

[Duncodin]

If anyone's curious about how close (or not) the rebody matches the original

This isn't to scale - I've just sized the images so that the wheel centres line up(ish) to see what the proportions are like

 

[ruan]

Thanks for this it is interesting to see both the similarities and the differences, it is closer than I thought.