Obviously (for those that follow closely) there have been some gaps between posts here on Learn To Catch Catfish of recent and the Catfishing Radio episodes have not been as frequent over the past month either. Much of the reason behind this is outside of just generally being crazy busy and also trying to catch up on fall orders for Rednecks Catfish Bait Soap, I have been working on some major maintenance and repairs to my catfish boat.
In the midst of doing all this maintenance and completing the repairs I decided I needed to strip all the old decals off the boat (they were in really bad shape) and freshen them up with some new decals. In the process of removing the old decals much of the paint decided to come off of the boat as well, leaving me with the decision to either repaint it, leave it as is, or wrap it.
Boat wraps are pretty popular in the bass fishing world but haven’t made it mainstream in most catfish circles just yet. I had seen them around town but had never really looked into what the cost or the process. My boat looked so bad after the decal removal I decided I had to either repaint it or get it wrapped.
I asked around with some friends on Facebook to try to get some referrals and called around and talked to probably a dozen different companies or more in regards to price, process, time to complete the job and all the other questions I had about the boat wrap.
Finally I opted to go with All Signs and Tint to do the boat wrap based on the information they provided me during my initial conversation, price and the speed at which they could turn the job around and have the boat wrap completed.
I took the boat over and met with Ryan so he could take some pictures of the boat to get ready for the boat wrap design and take a bunch of measurements needed to do the design work. Ryan and I met at that time and I outlined what I was looking for with the design in regards to colors, background, logos and the overall look of the boat wrap (translated loud and bold as seen in the photo above).
They sent me over the first draft design by email the next day and we began the process of going back and forth tweaking the colors, layout and text and everything involved with the boat wrap. In total this part of the process took one trip to their shop, a few emails and two phone calls. Mixed in the middle somewhere there was a bad drawing that I completed and snapped a photo with my iPhone and emailed it to the guys at All Signs and Tint.
A couple of days later I dropped the boat off to have the boat wrap completed and they began to work their magic applying the vinyl. All in all they had the boat at their shop about half a day and the layout and install was complete.
I am blown away by the transformation of the look after the boat wrap and it was a quick and painless process as well as relatively inexpensive given what was involved. There was no way I could have painted the boat for the price of the wrap.
The photos below show some of the before and after work of All Signs and Tint and the video shows some of the process of them applying the wrap.
If you are in the market for a wrap in the Dallas Fort Worth area give Ryan a shout at All Signs and Tint at 817-581-8468. They definitely did a great job for me!
About Chad
Chad, I was wondering if you had deleted me from your post! Glad to know it was your boats fault. The boat looks great. Will be not be mistaken who you are when going down the road or on the water. It really does look good.
tda
Your boat looks pretty sexy. I’ll bet the dang thang catches more fish.
Not sure about helping me catch more fish, we will see.
Chad, did ya’ll talk about durability in general? I realize your boat may get a little more scrapes and bruises because of where you fish, but I was just curious to know what is said about the longevity, and durability. To be honest, all I have heard from everyone else is “hey, that looks cool!” I have never heard anyone mention the overall quality of the product as far as wear is concerned. Any info regarding that aspect of the product would be greatly appreciated!
Steven
My buddy has one on his and runs through some gnarly stuff with little problems. I guess we will see.
I noticed that they cut the bottom just above the waterline, is it not recommended that it be under the waterline?
It was just a personal choice. They generally try to stay at the water line it is just usually not noticeable because it is usually on bass boats. I wanted to stay above that line both for cost and also minimizing the possibility of damaging it.