There was a cracked gray swoosh decal on each side of my FT that finally got tired of looking at and removed. Much to my surprise, there were tiny cracks underneath these cracked decals. They are quite small and most people probably wouldn't notice them if they didn't know where to look but nonetheless, they are there.
I'm not sure why these particular gray decals cracked. No other decals on the coach have cracked nor did the longer but thinner sections of the gray decal crack. Only the large swoosh section. It was very clear that this was some sort of separate decal piece.
This is just a heads up to anyone who might start to notice a particular decal cracking, immediately remove it and hopefully you will keep it from cracking the fiberglass.
I'm not sure how well this is going to show up in the photos, especially the tiny fiberglass cracks.
After a LOT of hard work, all of our decals are off. Under some, there were cracks. The good part is they don't go in very far. I used a jitterbug (air) with medium wet or dry and an spray of water every few seconds to sand them down. Went with lighter and lighter paper and finished up with 2500. The gelcoat where the decals were is pretty thick so don't have to worry about going through it.
You can see the cracks in your attached photo. Looks like ours did/does as I have not quite finished.
Pierce
Saw vertical ones. They are most probably caused by heat increase in dark colours. Point an IR gun at all the different colours on coach and you will be amazed at the broad range.
JohnH
Excellent suggestion. I wouldn't necessarily have recognized the need to act quickly. Now I do. Thanks!
Am I correctly understanding what is being said here? The color of the dark areas of the sticker cause enough heat from sunlight over time to crack the gel coat underneath it? I see from the pictures that there are obvious cracks under the removed sticker but I don't understand how the sticker could have generated enough heat to cause it. My stickers are peeling in some places but haven't started cracking yet. I guess there's no way to know if cracks have developed under them without removing them. And would the cracks be worse under the darker maroon areas than the grey?
Correct. The darker the color, the hotter it gets underneath. The laid up fiberglass underneath the Gel Coat still has some VOC's trapped even after it is cured (as explained to me by Greg, the shop foreman at Xtreme). Over time, the higher temperatures underneath the dark colors (be it paint or vinyl decals, though the paint being thinner is maybe not as bad) causes the VOC's to expand and crack the gelcoat. It just depends on exposure to hot summer temperatures and is often worse on one side if the parking orientation habitually favors the sun one side. Our coach had some dark green stripes that had some very minor cracking, really more surface crazing then cracking. Only visible from certain angles and in some lighting conditions. The fix is to sand the area and prime and paint it. One reason why painting the same graphics is a popular option... though some, like us, choose a different color scheme and or different style graphics which cover the areas damaged by the heat gain.
Don
Some of our dark brown decals have cracked on the drivers side and front. Others are holding up very well. We like our graphics so we will likely remove and paint'm on.
Yes but surprisingly, it is only under my gray stickers that the cracking has occurred. It's the same on both sides of the RV. The seemingly darker sections under the maroon stickers has been fine and the maroon stickers themselves are not cracked anywhere on the coach. It might be that they are somehow a slightly different material or something.
For whatever reason, it has only affected the middle section of stripes on the RV also. I've removed everything down low except for a thin pinstripe without any cracking but the gray sections above the basement doors have been problematic.
Eventually, I'll probably have Xtreme paint on new stripes when I get around to upgrading the headlights, someday.
If you say that the maroon stripes are perfect and not cracking or peeling how do you know they have not caused cracks in the gel-coat as you can not see under them??
I bet you do have many there if the grey has them.
JohnH