Stig takes 3M Controltac for a spin around a Mitsubishi Shogun

Written by Stig | 17 November 2011

One of my clients asked me to wrap his Mitsubishi Shogun in matt black vinyl just recently and, seeing as matt black is all the rage these days, it was not a problem as I have done quite a few of these in the last year.

We had a chat about what he was looking for and he was all ‘quality’ this and ‘quality’ that, so I suggested that if he wanted to dig a little deeper in his pockets I would upgrade the material to 3M Controltac which would give him what he was looking for. After mucho haggling, he’s a Cockney Mexican, we came to an agreement and said material was purchased.

Now, between you and me, I had never fitted this new material before and had previously been put off the whole ‘easy fit/bubble free’ range of materials that various manufacturers introduced a few years ago after some serious horrors with recess failures! But, according to folklore, these 3M chaps may just know a thing or two about the land of sticky back plastic, so we had a go and placed our order.

When it arrived I was amazed at how thick the material actually is. Nevertheless, thick or not, it was stiff enough for the missus, so we cranked up the old heat gun and got down to business.

According to 3M, the thing with this Controltac adhesive technology, and probably what makes it so thick, is that it features small glass beads on the adhesive surface that prevent the film from sticking prematurely to the substrate. They say that once it has been positioned properly, it’s the pressure from the squeegee onto the film that forces the glass beads to be absorbed by the adhesive which then makes direct contact to the substrate and provides the required adhesion for a good bond to the vehicle. I didn’t understand any of it either, but suffice to say that I just wanted this film to be very easy to handle and fit, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it does what it says it does on the tin.

The film has a very low initial grab rate (that would be the control in the ‘tac’ then) which was sometimes a bit of a pain because when you want a bit of tension for the initial strike line, and you give it a little bit of a pull,  the other side is already letting go! But after getting a nice big panel set in place for the primary fit, it all went swimmingly well.

What I did find was this vinyl needs quite a lot of heat to get it supple enough to drop into recesses, but once you get going it is really nice to work with. The bubbles push out easily and it will put up with a lot of stick before it even thinks about failing. However, it’s not all singing and dancing. I found that when I started getting down to the intricate detailing of the fit, such as the rear light mouldings and grills and so forth, it had a tendency to be a bit clunky to apply, but you can’t have it all ways.

I would definitely use this film again provided that the client was willing to pay the little bit extra to use it.   

Fitting conditions were in a climate controlled environment in a race team workshop, and you can’t get much cleaner than that!

Here’s how it rated on the day.

• Swear factor: 3/10 (the higher the number the less I like it!)
• Value for money:  5/10 (expensive material, but fitting time is reduced)
• Ease of use: 8/10
• Detailing: 3/10
• Final finish: 8/10

As always, the proof is in the pudding and if there are any failures I will be sure to let you know.
www.3m.com/controltac