home made decals

[kingplinker]

Has anyone tried this decal paper to make your own decals? It works pretty good I think. Cool cuz you can make ANYTHING you want! I made this plate for my Shapliegh bike, it goes behind upper seat tube , and arch follow shape of tire - here is what I did - only step Ileft out was you have to spray the sheet with a mat fixative before you cut them out and soak them in water...

Here are few ideas for top plate I was messing with but decided to do late in wheel area instead...

Here's what I did...

You can get the decal paper at walmart, i got mine off eBay cuz wal mart is an hour away....

they seem REAL durable - I will spray whole plate w/matt clear and I don't see why it won't be weather proof...

man you can use decals on ANYTHING!!!

 

[necessaryevil]

I had nothing but problems with that same decal kit. I made grey firestone text with a black border and when I set the sheet in water, The film picked up the black, but not the grey. just make sure your printer is using oil based inks, or the color will just evaporate in water. Good luck

 

[Firewalker]

Wow

keep us posted on how it turns out ...

FW

 

[kingplinker]

Ok, will do! Doing other side now...

Decal paper comes in two types - Inkjet OR Laserjet - can't be intermixed or whatever. Brand I had is called "Papillo" for inkjet printer.

Did you spray them with sealer before dunking in water? I used a cheap old Acrylic spray - put it on real thick. Waited an hour, then dipped them in warm water - I got zero tears, bleeds, etc. - typically things like this do not work for me, I was surprised how well they came from desktop printer and all that.

 

[SuperStuff]

Dang that's cool. You did those on an inkjet printer? I'm impressed.

 

[Boardtrack fan]

I wonder how well the inks hold up to sun light? I guess time will tell. Here are some vintage motorcycle decals I scanned and fixed-up. Maybe somebody can use them on a project.

 

[kingplinker]

yeah I hear ya on the sun thing - but for a rat bike a little fading and stuff is a good thing eh? :mrgreen: cool harley decals! will definitey snag those! THANKS!

I shot both sides with a Matt Finish Clear Coat. I was worried they would crackle or bubble, but all cool - got lucky on these I guess.

 

[TheDuke]

It's good to have a Brother in law with a Vinal sign company! 8)
L8 EM

 

[Bunbury]

I got a gift certificate for Circuit City from my boss for christmas and picked up a nice Epson specifically for printing decals. I've seen the Papilio water slide paper, but I didn't know they sold something similar at wally world. What dep't would it be in, office supplies?

 

[user 135]

I have wanted to try these. I did another project(nonbike) where I copied pictures on a color laser copier. Paint a artist medium on the ceramic tiles and smoothed the pictures on the tiles. Let dry then rubbed off with water.

This would be much easier.

 

[necessaryevil]

I'm glad they're working for you, I went through a whole pack of paper and can of fixative before giving up. I think the color ink I bought was garbage. Everything black was perfect, everything color vanished in water. You've given me hope for a model car I'm building, needs about 100 tiny decals made up.

 

[aka_locojoe]

I didn't have much luck with these. Glad to hear it's working for you. I may have to try again.
Anxious to see them on the bike.

Oh and if I recall... placing them on a dark background (even if the print was light in color) they didn't show up well. Maybe that was because of the printer or the dpi or something.

 

[ParkRNDL]

I got a whole education in this trying to make decals for little HO scale slot cars (old Aurora Thunderjets). I printed the images on plain white paper, then bought the laser decal paper and took the whole mess to Office Max and let them make color laser copies on the decal paper. (EDIT: I had a hard time finding a Staples/Office Max that wan't worried that my decal paper would gum up their machine. Bring the package with you to show them what it is, and even then, they may not be happy about it. Much later, I tried a sheet in a b/w copier just to do meatball numbers for the doors... I screwed up the machine at work. I claimed stupidity and told them it was for something work-related. Lesson learned.) THe laser printing does NOT come off with water, and the decals worked real well on white backgrounds. However, you are right about dark colors... unless you are putting the decal on a white background, the color behind shows through. THink about it--inks are designed to be used on white paper. Even photo printers print on white paper. If you tried to print on black paper, you wouldn't see much. So if you print a colored design on clear (decal) paper, then put the decal on a black surface, it'd have the same effect.

There are 3 ways around this that I know of:
1. Paint or otherwise create a white background only where you want the decal to go. Not very practical, and maybe more trouble than it's worth, but it'd work in certain applications.

2. Use white decal paper. At the time I was doing this, white decal paper was available. Obviously, it presents problems if your graphic is supposed to have blank spaces which will now be white, but again, it may work for you depending on what you want to do with it.

2. Get an ALPS printer. When I was fooling with this, this is what the guys who finally started making decals successfully did. Somehow, an ALPS printer lays down an opaque background before printing the color. You can get any color and even gold and silver metallic to show up this way. However, the only other thing I know about ALPS printers is they are expensive. A Google search can tell you more.

All that said, I still have a bunch of the ones I did and I still use them... they work great if you can do a white background...

--rick

edit--looking back at the images in the first post, they'd work fine and look great on a white top plate...

 

[slacker]

Wow! Great work. This post really deserves a sticky in the how to section.

 

[Rodland]

I just spent the day hunting decal paper. None of 3 waleyworld stores had it, but I found some in the model car section of Hobby Lobby.Comes in White or clear. It is pricey 6 sheets (5.5" x 8.5") for 9 bucks. They also have the decal bonder( clear spray). These are a TESTORS product.

I'll let you know how it works for me.

 

[kingplinker]

well, it's been a few months, and the decals did not hold up that well - I put clear coat on them, that seemed to help a little. Anything that had BLACK ink in it spread like an old tattoo - other colors all OK - so stay away from black & you should be fine! - But I like the faded look too.. :mrgreen: