How to Repair Damaged Film | Tips from Professionals ⋆ Nelcos

Lesson #9 - How to Repair Damaged Film

Renovation rarely happens flawlessly. During the interior film installation, many things may happen to you material – it gets dented or air bubbles pop up right in the center of your surface. Moreover, the film can be damaged afterwards. Whether it’s a dog bite or some industrial scratch (Bodaq interior film is damage-resistant, but still not adamant just like any other surface), replacing the entire surface is an expensive option.

Actually, any of the nuisances is fixable. How to repair damaged film – watch the video or read our guidelines futher.

Repair Tools

We’ve discussed an entire toolkit for installation in the previous lesson. For the repairing process, you will need a few:

Knife – make sure to have brand-new blades to cut the film smoothly.

Air-release pen – many options are available. Don’t use it for anything else besides poking holes!

Squeegee – a flat, smooth rubber blade, used for cleaning surfaces or controlling the flow of liquid on a flat surface.

Heat gun – quite expensive, so normally only professional installers have them, but always comes in handy when you need to remove any dents. If you don’t have one, a squeegee will do, too.

Air Bubbles

Well, you are wrapping a surface with the film, and an annoying air bubble says hello. The first method is to use the squeegee you have only a few square feet of the film and smoothing it out to the edge won’t take much time. Gladly, interior film is super stretchable. The second option is to poke a tiny hole with the air-release pen. Its piercing tip is so sharp that holes will not be visible to a human eye. Check the video to see with your own eyes that it is true. But, again, don’t use this pen for anything else!

Dented Film

Film rolls get dented, especially during the transportation. It is absolutely normal. Thanks to the air channels inside one layer of the film, removing dents is no problem. The heat gun would be a perfect solution here. We don’t expect every DIY-er to have one, so the good old squeegee is a way to go. It is significantly more effective when you have something warm (not hot) to apply to the film.

Damages: Scratches, Visible Holes, etc.

Finally, the hardest part. Step One will be to get a piece of the film that resembles your initial pattern. With solid colors or homogeneous metals it won’t be an issue, with wood carves and circles might be tricky. For Step Two, press your overlay into the damaged area. A heat gun will be quite useful here as it will make edges more visible. For Step Three, cut off the remaining part of the overlay but leave 1/4 or 1/8 inch. In order to make the repair totally seamless, you now need to peel up the overlay on the edges and cut out the original film so it perfectly fits the new patch. In this case, a picture is worth a thousand words. So take a look at the video (starting from 7:28) to get a better grasp of the process.

More Than Repairing Film

By the way, there is a bonus tip in the end of YouTube video on how to better apply film to corners so the wall paint remains untouched. Exclusively from our professional installers who has been in the industry for 20+ years!.

We hope that you found this lesson useful. Stay tuned for our upcoming lesson on how to determine the amount of extra film that you will need for refinishing.