What if you could have any picture as your trucks hard cover paint job? We have all seen painted hard covers for trucks, but what if we could embed a printed picture of anything (chrome, wife, shoes, logos,ect...) and have that be the paint job. Then it would never get scratched off because it is underneath fiberglass. I know how! Truck covers are only one field, I wonder if their is better fields to use this tecnology. Any suggestions? post here or e-mail me tecwiz002@hotmail.com
-- tecwiz001, Sep 03 2003

Tonneau cover example http://www.tonneau-covers.info/
These are some covers. There are many others types... [swamilad, Oct 04 2004]

tecwiz001's link as a link http://www.design-a-top.com/
no charge! [po, Oct 04 2004]

In plastics, this is baked on a small scale by ski and snowboard manufacturers. A reverse of the final image is silkscreened on the underside of the transparent plastic top material, uppermost color first, finished by a "flood coat" of white. The top is then molded to the ski/snowboard ink-side-down.

The size of the part is only limited by the available sizes of silkscreening machinery, which could be (I imagine) built to whatever scale you want. At the ski plant we were using screens 8' long. It should be possible to print the image onto a plastic sheet larger than the truck cover, then mold it to the panel. The truck cover would finish production with the artwork already on (well, "in") it. A layer of tape protects the top as the part goes through the rest of the production process, being removed at the QC station(hopefully one of the last steps).
-- gardnertoo, Sep 03 2003


[UnaBubba], I think [tecwiz] is talking about a hard cover for the open bed of a pickup truck. These are also called tonneau covers.
-- swamilad, Sep 03 2003


I found this site, Seems quite good! www.design-a-top.com
-- tecwiz001, Dec 29 2003



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