K.O. SWINGER
Meeting in the alley since 1976
So I already crapped my first attempt of putting the bee's tail on my 70 340 swinger would somebody tell me how they accomplished it without flaws. Please.
You will love this, because the trunk lid has a faint bend in the center, and the designers wanted the stripe to look like it was straight across when viewed from the back of the car, they put that shallow bend in the stripe. Give it a try, stand behind the car and take a look and... damned if it doesn't look straight. Clever fellows, those factory guys!!!The one I put on from Phoenix graphics is "boomarang" across the trunk lid. If you were to paint it on you would do the same thing. The shape follows the shape of the rear of the trunk lid.
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No matter how tempting.. DO NOT poke the bubbles with a needle. They will start to show as dark spots very shortly afterwards as they collect dirt and start to show the body colour through the strip. Some of my small ones took a full month to finally disappear, but as noted above by str12 they will go away.
My paint guy stated something similar to your guy... "I just put them down dry" and that's when I immediately decided to do it myself.
*** end of car cleaned with dish soap and water, then endlessly wiped down with Naptha (Coleman stove fuel) to be spotless. Same deal on the aluminum sheet I had the decals laid out on before install.
Here's the install of the trunk strip on my Bee. Not sure which I like the most showing the install or the fact that my Wife of 39 years is right there helping install it to the car we were married in in '82!
Makes more sense to me to do the deck stripe first and then line each quarter up to match, vs quarters first and then trying to line the deck up with two locations. Also note the tape location marks to line things up... allowing for the backing overwidth to do so. (my battery died before finished on this one and I didn't know it)
I have heard to do your side stripes first but you started with your deck stripe?
I bought my 340 swinger in 1978 and the stripe was in good shape overall, I would have to think the decal department would be pretty Kush on the assembly line you mess up too many and you'll be heading back to the grinder shop LOLI can't imagine how fast and how non perfect they must have been when they put them on from the factory, lol. I'd be willing to bet no two are the same. Nice job, beautiful car!
Looks great!
The one I put on from Phoenix graphics is "boomarang" across the trunk lid. If you were to paint it on you would do the same thing. The shape follows the shape of the rear of the trunk lid.
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