Waterslide Decals

[irmcdermott]

So I'm getting ready to experiment with using waterslide decals for the first time and was wondering if anyone had any tips and tricks that I should know before going into it. I think my biggest question is, do I cut out for the holes before or after I apply the graphic? Right now I use overhead transparencies, and with those I cut out the holes with an exacto knife once it dries onto the enclosure. Any help/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

Ian

[gtr2]

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=884.0

josh

i let it dry a little then cut the holes out carefully with an exacto, it's not completely dry when I do it but the decal is not sliding around either

the bb preamp is my best so far http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=939.0

[irmcdermott]

Awesome, thanks! I actually did do a search, but I guess I accidentally searched a particular section of the forum rather than overall, so when it turned up with no results, I posted this. Thanks for the information!

Ian

[gtr2]

I tried searching because I knew I started the tread and It didn't show up either, I had to look through the pages.  I've had this happen before with the search function.

[irmcdermott]

One more question for you decal users. If I have a "full face" graphic that I'm going to try and apply, will the paint on top of the pedal matter? Or should I sand that back down to metal? There will be no clear areas on this particular graphic and my concern is that the rest of the pedal is black, so I'm not sure if the top being black will affect the look of the graphic (it is clear paper). Just curious. So far I'm loving using this decal paper. I'm having great results with graphics that have just been text so far. Thanks@

[night-B]

In my experience, if you use laserjet printer everything will go fine, unless you would like to get white areas on your decal. If so you should get white waterslide, cause you can't print white!
If you use an inkjet printer, you'll get a little bit of transparency because of the poor ink depot, so your colors may be darker than expected on a black paint...

I had a big issue with waterslides. Be sure to check that the clear coat doesn't affect your paint job. Once I had a chemical reaction between a shining silver paint spray can, and my clear coat spray can.
The clear turned silver into mate grey, so under the decal it's all silver, and around grey mate.
The decals look like they are bad quality stickers on the pedal (chek my firebomb in the build reports).
Hope you'll have a great experience with your job 

[Bored]

If your enclosure paint color is anything other than white you'll have some serious blending problems. The dark pedal color will overpower the decal, regardless of printing style (ink or laser)

Stick with a light color for your enclosure and you'll be fine. And remember your color combination's- yellow and blue make green, etc- so if you paint your box yellow- any blue on your decal will be greenish.

As for cutting your holes- wait till its dry, but cut them out BEFORE you do any top coating. Many top coating sprays will 'melt' the label where there is nothing under it. Not a bad thing, but it can cause some odd looking hole edges.

Bored

[barndawg]

Stick with a light color for your enclosure and you'll be fine.

It's too late for me to fix my mistake on this one. I got a couple of very darkly colored powder-coated enclosures from PedalPartsPlus and now can't find a good way to label them.

Does anyone have a tip on the best way to label a darkly colored pedal? I'm not much of an artist but I guess I could try buying some acrylic paint . . .

[Smeero]

Does anyone have a tip on the best way to label a darkly colored pedal? I'm not much of an artist but I guess I could try buying some acrylic paint . . .

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=1766.0