No film decal paper

[stevie1556]

I've just seen some decal paper that doesn't leave a film and just wondering if anyone has any experience with it. The only time I've used decal paper was years ago and putting a clear powder coat layer on top. The issue with that was on the lighter colours, if you weren't extremely careful, the water marks showed as brown spots under the clear coat.

Seems to work the same way as normal decal paper, but the glue sticks the image down and then the film can be pulled off, and then baked in an oven to cure the image. Here is a link to the video https://youtu.be/4gP9ChoGSTY

[cooder]

I have ordered that stuff and am also really curious, haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but will report back when I have my first experience with it.
So far I have used their standard decal film stuff and that is a great product.

[stevie1556]

Cheers for that. If their normal stuff is decent then I'm going to take a punt on it and hope for the best.

I'm hoping that when baking the decals in the oven, the powder coat won't melt into it or distort or anything like that. I'll let everyone know how well the decals work as soon as I get time to try them out.

FYI, if anyone else tries it on powder coated boxes, don't bake them in your kitchen oven as you'll eventually poison yourself.

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[Bio77]

Just ordered some myself.  This looks great. 

I usually apply the waterslide decal before drilling to position the holes.  Sometimes the drill pushes chips under the decal and I have to remove it and reapply a new label.   This would eliminate that problem. 

Thanks for posting.

[stevie1556]

Bio77 - the only time I've used them, I had the holes pre-drilled so i could line the decal up properly. Hoping these work for you and solve that problem though.

Good news, the decals arrived yesterday. Bad news, I won't get a chance to try them until next weekend at the earliest. I've nearly finished getting some designs ready so I can get them down the print shop this week as I don't have a laser printer anymore.

[stevie1556]

Managed to get the designs finished up and taken to a local print company. Ideally I wanted to do it earlier this week but the acoustic multi effect label needed a bit more tweaking.

I took the designs on a SD card but they didn't have a card reader available, but luckily I printed the designs out at home and took them with me. I wasn't sure how well they'd copy across but looking at the decals they seem to have a good amount of toner coverage and colour.

The pedals I've done labels for are for my acoustic build, MB Dreamtime, green Russian, MBs Narosla (modified EP booster) and a Phase 45. I've also got a load of labels for the back plates printed. I'm going to drill the enclosures tomorrow, hopefully get them all painted up over the weekend as well, but that depends on work. For the acoustic pedal and the Dreamtime, I'm going to have 3mm pilot holes drilled and can line the labels up using that, for the other pedals, I've got absolutely no idea how I'll get the labels lined up correctly.

I've got high hopes for these labels!

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[cooder]

Looking great and keen to see and hear how these work for you!
Good luck with the lining up!

[EBK]

I've been looking at the video demo for this product, but one thing has me confused: the glue.

What type of glue is that?  And, why doesn't it look like crap on the clear glass in their demo pic?  Is the glue magically invisible?  Would I have to carefully mask the area that I apply the glue in to get a decent looking result?

One thing I would also like to try: 
What if I were to glue a regular piece of decal paper toner side down and try to peel it off?  Could it possibly work exactly the same?

[cooder]

I've been looking at the video demo for this product, but one thing has me confused: the glue.

What type of glue is that?  And, why doesn't it look like crap on the clear glass in their demo pic?  Is the glue magically invisible?  Would I have to carefully mask the area that I apply the glue in to get a decent looking result?

One thing I would also like to try: 
What if I were to glue a regular piece of decal paper toner side down and try to peel it off?  Could it possibly work exactly the same?

I still didn't have the right project coming up to give this a try, I'm also looking forward to see if there's issues with glue residue, hopefully not. I would doubt that regular decal paper toner down would do the same thing... I would guess that this stuff has a substrate that the toner doesn't stick too well too so that it comes off once attached with the glue easy enough when you peel. I will certainly post something when I have some experience with that, but stevie1556 might beat me to it.
I am specifically trying to do decal on guitar head stock with that, hoping that it will blend in much better than the regular film would.

[stevie1556]

EBK - I'm not sure on the glue type, the glue pot just says W1. W2 is the glue you use to dry nataurally without using an oven.

I've just got a bunch of enclosures painted up then I'm going to use the decals on either today or tomorrow, I'll let you know the results when I get them done.

As for the glue residue, here is what the instructions say, hope this helps a bit.

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[Willybomb]

I took the designs on a SD card but they didn't have a card reader available

I always take mine on a USB stick.

[stevie1556]

Yeah, I'll be doing that next time, just need to get a USB stick.

I'm hoping these will be good for if you're only making a few pedals. Being in the UK, the postage and import charges of the UV printed enclosures from PPP is just too much, and normal decal sheets with the clear coat on top is just a complete PITA the get right.

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[stevie1556]

UPDATE!

I tried using these yesterday and had massively mixed results.  Apologies for the lack of pictures, but I was getting far too annoyed when they weren't working correctly.

Two things I'll mention first. Their YouTube video says to soak the decal for 30 seconds, but the instructions that came with them says 3-5 seconds. If you do the 30 seconds the decal falls off of the paper in the water, so around 5 seconds is about right. Also, I didn't have a paint brush to put the glue onto the enclosure with, so I used a squeegee type thing, and tried various amounts of glue.

On my acoustic pedal enclosure, I put the decal on the back plate first, then I did the front ones individually, but the ones on the front became all wrinkly after a few minutes even though the one on the back was fine.

On a fair few of the back plates, the decal didn't transfer properly, I'm not sure why. I'm going to strip them off later today and redo them.

The yellow label for the Peewee Booster (Beans modified EP booster from the DIY page) didn't show on the red paint, so I'll have to redo that in a different colour.

The labels for the Creamy Dreamer (Beans Dreamtime) were originally in blue, however, I ended up using a baby blue on the enclosure and that colour wouldn't have worked. The print shop accidentally left the copier on the black and white setting so there was a lot of toner on the transfer, and apart from 1 enclosure, they turned out great. Having the copier set to black and white and not on colour allows for more black toner on the decal.

When cleaning any excess glue off the enclosure using isopropanal alcohol, it does remove a very small amount of the toner. Not sure if it's noticeable or not, but there was some toner on the kitchen towel that I used. You can also faintly see where the decal sheet as been applied. I'm assuming it's where the powder started melting slightly.

One last thing, I'm not sure if my overs were set slightly too high or not. The dial marks are 70, a load of notches, 120, a load of notches, 180, a load a notches, etc. Between 70-120 there are more mother then the 120-180 range, so I'm going to take a temperature probe with me today.

I'll add the results of round 2 either tonight or tomorrow, along with more pictures.

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[Bio77]

I used them yesterday myself.  I found a technique to get good results.

Stevie1556 don't try to remove the botched label with acetone.  I did this, and that enclosure is going in the trash (Side note: I used nail polish remover, maybe proper acetone will work better).  Instead make small labels for the part that didn't work out and overlay a new label. 

Technique that worked:

1.  Follow the instructions through to step 7:  Wet label, put glue on box, put label on, dry with hair dryer.
2.  Ignore step 8: do not remove the film, yet. 
3.  Place enclosure in 250 F toaster oven for 30 min.
4.  Now remove film.
5.  Wipe down with alcohol to clean off glue.

[cooder]

Seems like a bit of a learning curve for this... thanks for sharing!