Custom Paint and Graphics for RVs in Yorba Linda

Sprayed graphics are paint. They are as durable as the rest of the finish, they can be polished, they have no edge to lift, and they cost the most because every color is a separate masking and spray cycle. A four color sprayed design means four rounds of mask, spray, cure and unmask. This is the right answer on a coach you intend to keep and on any design with soft edges, fades or airbrush work.

Printed decals reproduce the original look at a fraction of the labor. Modern print and laminate holds up well under UV, and reproducing a discontinued factory package from good photographs and dimensions gets a coach back to original appearance for $500 to $5,500 at 3 to 25 hours. The tradeoff is edges. Every decal has an edge, edges collect dirt and eventually lift, and decals over painted surfaces shrink over years.

Vinyl wrap covers the surface rather than decorating it. It runs $1,500 to $9,500 at 10 to 40 hours and it is the only option that allows a total appearance change without paint. It also protects the paint beneath it and comes back off. Its limits are seams on very large flat surfaces, rivet and corrugation on aluminum sided units, and a service life that is measured in years rather than decades in Southern California sun.

• Sprayed graphics: most durable, most labor, polishable, no edges
• Printed decal reproduction: fastest route back to original appearance
• Vinyl wrap: full appearance change, removable, protects the paint under it
• Combination work: sprayed base scheme with printed accent elements
• Fleet and commercial lettering with DOT numbering and compliance markings

Usually yes. What we need is either an intact section of the original on the vehicle, or clear photographs taken square to the surface with something of known dimension in frame. From that the design is redrawn to scale, colors are read off the surviving material, and the package is printed.

The place this goes wrong is scale. A graphic photographed at an angle distorts, and a package reproduced from a distorted reference fits the mock up and not the coach. We take measurements off the vehicle at multiple points and check the drawn artwork against those measurements before anything is printed.

Color on reproduction is its own problem. The surviving decal has faded too, so matching the old material exactly reproduces a faded graphic. We ask what the customer wants: original as it appeared new, or matched to the faded remainder if only part of the package is being replaced. Both are legitimate and they are different jobs.

The same way it is done on anything else, just longer. The base scheme goes on first as a full refinish or as a large field color. Then the design is laid out on the vehicle in fine line tape, checked from a distance because a curve that looks right from three feet looks wrong from thirty, and adjusted until it reads correctly at viewing distance.

Each color is then masked, sprayed, flashed and unmasked in sequence. Fades, drop shadows and airbrush work happen between those cycles. Clear goes over the entire assembly at the end, which is what buries the paint edges and makes a sprayed graphic feel like one continuous surface rather than layers stacked on each other.

That final clear is also why sprayed graphics can be polished and corrected later. There is no vinyl in the stack to burn through, and a sprayed design on a coach that gets a proper polish every few years will look correct long after a decal package would have been replaced twice.