Sometimes the artistic sticker on your car peels off after continuous exposure to sunlight, wind, dust and rain. What you want is a special design that will stand up to the climate retain and that you will be able to flaunt for ages.
With an autographic printer, you can paint any kind of design or photograph on your vehicle. “We step in where stickers fail,” says S.K. Saravanan, printing in charge, Varnam Autographics. “We started our business with stickers. Once it failed to match our expectations we appointed artists to paint. As they could not reproduce the image perfectly, we opted for these machines,” he says.
It is popularly called digital painting or direct painting. The printing machine, imported from Japan, has a 10-foot-long robotic hand and accepts any Adobe Photoshop or Corel Draw file. As the machine operates with the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) colour model, the vehicle is first painted white and then the desired designs are printed on.
“Printing designs on lighter shade will be more effective than on darker shades. Hence, we recommend only white base,” says S.K. Anand, in charge, designs.
“The robotic hand can rise up to a height of 13 feet,” says Saravanan. “It takes two hours for us to prepare the machine for the job. The machine can paint 30 sq ft area in an hour. It needs a compressor and a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) with a capacity to back up electricity for 13 hours,” he adds.
Once the work is over what you get is a perfect image on your vehicle. “Air bubbles are a big worry when you go for the stickers, but here the paint remains the same for years,” he says.
They advocate a clear coat painting after the job is over so that the colour will remain fresh for longer. The company also offers a warranty of seven years for the paint. “This special paint retains the colour even if it is exposed to rain and sunlight,” he says.
“The main advantage of the whole process,” says Saravanan, “is that in the event of damage to the graphics on the vehicle, there is no need to repaint the whole body. Instead, the damaged portion can be repainted with the use of this machine."
“It is definitely advantageous,” says S. Mayilvaganan, a regular customer. “For commercial vehicle owners like us this warranty will be of big use. Repainting only the damaged portion helps us save money. Though this technology is expensive, it helps you in the long run,” he adds.
Erasing the paint is not easy as it needs a special imported solution to remove the paint from the vehicle. “Applying kerosene or petrol or diesel to remove the paint is a waste,” Saravanan says.
Endorsements from Regional Transport Offices could be obtained for commercial vehicles with advertisements. Varnam Autographics also does three-dimensional paintings on your vehicles using this machine. “What we need is the photoshop file with personalised design to create that 3D effect. We then translate that painting on to your vehicle,” Anand says.
They charge Rs.175 per sq ft. provided the minimum area covered is 25 feet. “We offer a discount of Rs.20 persq ft if the covered area exceeds 10,000 sq ft,” says Saravanan.
