Wrappin' ...

The finished product; new Mossy Oak Obsession camo wrap with matchin' seats ... it's camo on the bayou!

     Howdy, y'all; sorry that it's been a while, but life happens!  Health issues and projects have kept me from postin' lately, so I thought I'd better get back at it with the completion of my Camo boat wrappin' project.  What started out as wrappin' my engine cowlin turned into several days of very tedious work.  I'm goin' to warn y'all; if ya ain't just a 'lil crafty and really friggin' patient, do not attempt this ... especially alone!  Had it not been for help from my son and my very patient, older & calmer first cousin from Jigger, I might have had a mini-man melt-down!

     First, I had to remove all of the decals, registration sticker & identification numbers from the hull.  Next, I had to remove the guide-ons and fender-wells from my trailer.  And finally, I had to remove any decal residue with acetone, scrub the entire exterior of my boat & engine with Dawn, rinse & dry it thoroughly and then degrease everything with denatured alcohol.  I ain't goin' to lie to y'all ... between all the acetone & alcohol scrubin' in the heat in our driveway, I got pretty-dang high from the fumes, so y'all be sure to wear a mask.

     I took the first couple of days of 70° weather to start actually wrappin' my boat.  Due to all of the through-hulls on the transom, I was smart enough to make a template out of poster board before I cut any vinyl.  I had to prep all of the surfaces with 3M 94 Primer, and then apply the vinyl with a squeegee & heat gun.  Even though there are how-to videos on the Mossy Oak Graphics Web site http://www.mossyoakgraphics.com that made this look fairly simple, I had one Hell of a time gettin' the wrap applied without some minor wrinklin'.  The boat that was wrapped on their video only had one rib runnin' down each side ... and my boat has two; so, when you factor-in that the sides contour, I could not for the life of me apply the wrap without some wrinkles.

     What I thought would be the hardest part of the job was actually the easiest ... wrappin' the engine down to the lower unit.  After I finally applied all of the vinyl, I had to pop any bubbles with my trusty X-ACTO knife, heat and re-squeegee everything.  And after trimmin' all of the edges, I had to go back and apply 3M Edge Sealer to keep the vinyl from peelin'.  I then applied the new hull identification numbers, the registration stickers and the boat's name, "Sloughstalker".  The last things to do were to reattach both depth-finder transducers and the guide-ons and fender-wells on the trailer.

     I pre-fished a bass tournament last weekend in Brazoria County and got quite a few comments on my boat.  "Hey, man ... what kind of boat is that?" or "Where'd you buy your boat?" were the main questions.  I had to explain that this was a 10 year-old Alumacraft that I (not so) simply wrapped, and then gave them the Mossy Oak Graphics address.  One guy even offered to pay me to wrap his boat, but I all too quickly and graciously declined.  I think I'd rather spend my time sloughstalkin' or fishin' than wrappin' any day!  Plus, I think I really owe my first cousin a trip.  Until next time, y'all take care ...