What are my options for making decals?

jur said:

I am painting a frame and want to put the original artwork on it. What
are my options for making decals?

Can't you buy decals from the manufacturer?

--
BrettS

jur said:

I am painting a frame and want to put the original artwork on it. What
are my options for making decals?

Some info from the famous suzyj

http://www.littlefishbicycles.com/frame/transfers.html

Parbs

jur said:

I am painting a frame and want to put the original artwork on it. What are my options for making decals?

Could you scan the art or get copies from an online source or the company and then get a sticker printing mob to make them for you?

I used to have a link or two for this activity but that was in Oz.

A-1 decals maybe?? something or other?

hippy

Most yacht chandlers or boat yards will have a contacft who can produce
laser cut names for boats etc in huge range of type faces

"jur" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

I am painting a frame and want to put the original artwork on it. What
are my options for making decals?

--
jur

jur said:

I am painting a frame and want to put the original artwork on it. What are my options for making decals?

There's a guy who makes reproductions of original bike decals, my husband exchanged email with him a few months ago with a view to replacing the damaged decals on his Miyata.

It will take him a while to wade through all his old emails, but I will post the details when he finds them.

EDIT: it didn't take as long as we thought - it is Velographic Decals
He will make custom decals from good quality colour photographs. Don't know what it costs, my husband didn't get as far as discussing price.

jur said:

I am painting a frame and want to put the original artwork on it. What
are my options for making decals?

You can buy sheets of transparent adhesive which you can print on and
stick on yourself with a laser printer.

Friday

Parbs said:

http://www.littlefishbicycles.com/frame/transfers.html

Unless you really want to get into it, I'd advise against making your own. The woman who did that is a complete nutcase.

The easiest solution is to get vinyl stickers cut. Any sign shop can do that. However, you're very limited artistically, and the result is fairly thick, and not amenable to hiding under clear-coat.

If it's a popular brand of bike, you may be able to get decals.

If you want to faithfully reproduce the decals, you're in for a fun ride. My first suggestion is to make a bracket to hold a digital camera a fixed distance from the tube, and take a bunch of photos around the decal. Stich the centers of these together using the Gimp or similar, and then draw over the top using Illustrator of Inkscape.

Then take a big financial breath and send the files to a production house, or else learn to make your own.

You can get decal film that you can print on with an inkjet printer, but the results are pretty crappy. There's no white ink available on an inkjet, and the inks aren't waterproof, and aren't particularly UV stable. What looks okay now will look totally washed out and awful in six months.

Best of luck,

Suzy

jur said:

I am painting a frame and want to put the original artwork on it. What
are my options for making decals?

Quick and nasty[1], but long lasting (ten years in direct sun) is a
Celcast stick on film that you run through a laser. the black tone and
film lasted ten years on a trailer side. No idea how a colour laser
would last. I suspect certain colouring agents wiould fade (red, blue,
etc).

It isn't that nasty. Depends on your artwork and resolution of the printer.

quote='Terryc'jur said:

I am painting a frame and want to put the original artwork on it. What
are my options for making decals?

Quick and nasty[1], but long lasting (ten years in direct sun) is a
Celcast stick on film that you run through a laser. the black tone and
film lasted ten years on a trailer side. No idea how a colour laser
would last. I suspect certain colouring agents wiould fade (red, blue,
etc).

It isn't that nasty. Depends on your artwork and resolution of the printer.[/QUOTE]
Depending on the complexity of the decal, could you hand paint the decal, or beg/borrow/steal an airbrush and make up stencils yourself. Then you get paint grade UV stability, smoothness under the clear coat and pride in your work.

Plus you can then test out multiple colours on a test piece of metal or similar for the end result.

suzyj said:

Parbs said:

http://www.littlefishbicycles.com/frame/transfers.html

Unless you really want to get into it, I'd advise against making your
own. The woman who did that is a complete nutcase.

Well I wasn't going to say anything...

Parbs

Wouldn't clearcoat block UV? (thinking about just about any sunnies that purportedly block UV).

We have this label maker at work, I thought I'd try to make a black outline on clear background and gold paint/pen in the rest.

It's just a Raleigh 20. But it's still worth doing well if it's worth doing.