I’ll take a Wrap and a Giant Hot Dog Please

This project allowed us to meld two of our skills, vehicle wraps and 3D Sign Making,  into one “unique” looking vehicle.  Our client Callahan’s Hot Dogs in Norwood was in need of a new vehicle wrap to match their now famous Hot Dog Truck. So Nanette dove into the design then Dan called and asked… “Can you build a giant hot dog for the top of the van?”. Of course I said yes

This is how we did it.

First the new design was created for the wrap. As the guys are working on this we’ll have the guys in fabrication building the hot dog.

Callahans-Proof Small

 

We started with the logo and converted it into a 3D file in Enroute Pro. Then sized it up and split it into two parts. We’ll cut the hot dog in slices so we can build a “skeleton” inside of it. This is important – we need this to be strong and solid as it cruises down the highway.

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Peter has the foam pieces laid out and will begin building the aluminum structure that will hold this all together.

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Meanwhile…. back in the “wrap room” Rad and Greg are cranking out the install.

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We are really customizing this one – all lettering has been removed from the van and we’ll replace them with the name of the van “Minibeast”. we also removed the Ford emblems and fabricated custom emblems that tread “Since 1950″. we cut the letters of out PVC and will paint them metallic with our PPG Paint System.

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The emblems are cut from PVC then painted metallic. We then printed the graphic directly to the emblem plate.   Once printed we clear coated them.299 300 303

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Peter has the basics done and he’s ready to test the sizing of the hot dog. 309 318

I’m in the paint room customizing the hubcaps!

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Dan stopped by for an inspection of the wrap – He’s a little anxious to get that Callahan’s hot dog on there! Don’t worry – it’s coming.

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Holin and Peter have the dog coated with AquaResin, sanded and ready for paint.  We’ll spray prime it and paint the base color then hand paint the details.

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Uh oh – can’t get it out the door…. No we got it.

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Time for the install.        433 442 All good.  (now we have to light it up). And again – I’m hungry.

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– Steve

Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.