Classic & Vintage - Making your own decals for Vintage bikes-legal/copyright issues?

The post below inquiring about decals has made me ponder making some replica decals for Classic/Vintage bikes. The capability to produce pretty much EXACT replica decals is within anyones grasp who has PS and the right printer and some decal paper. A scan or picture of another decal is all that is needed. Would this violate any laws that anyones is aware of? Are there copyright issues that prevent the home hobbiest from making his own vintage bike decals and either selling them or giving them to other bike collectors? This is so easy its hard to believe that some decals are so hard to find for some bikes-reproduction of course as original decals probably are very hard or impossible to find I assume. Anyone shed any light on this?

Schwinn has been guarding their copyright in regard to decals the last few years:

http://www.schwinnbike.com/heritage/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7709

Other brand name owners may have issues -- especially if you reproduce for resale.

The problem with doing them on your home printer is the ink. Most inkjet inks for home use will fade in the sun ...

Best of Luck,

Bob Hufford
Springfield, MO

If done for personal use and, as Bob points out, there should be no real issue. Printers will do this for you as well. A company in Canada reproduced some Basso decals for me awhile ago.

Thank you Bob and Walter.

I am just exploring this at this point as I already have a suite of graphics tools that I use for my employment that would work perfectly for decals. The question mark IS the ink. I would think with the proliferation of photo printers and photo inks that good home decal creation was possible. It may not be yet. If I decide to attempt this I will post my results after I gather more data.

You can silkscreen them and control the ink that way; then the issue becomes registration between colours, since you s/s one colour at a time.

I tried making decals with my home computer, but the ink literally disappeared when exposed to sunshine.

Sounds like Poguemahone knows more about printing, but does anybody know if UV permanent ink cartridges are available?

UV resistant clear coat paint over the decals to protect the ink, perhaps?
And, I believe if you own your bike, and make the decals for your own use, that would be okay..however, reselling them would probably be a no-no without a license or permission from the owner. Just a couple thoughts.

Originally posted by nebill
UV resistant clear coat paint over the decals to protect the ink, perhaps?



Good thinking, Nebill. I tried that too, but it didn't work. I think special ink is required.

Of course! That would have been too easy! Interesting that they make a decal paper for a printer, but not the UV resistant ink to go with it! And, our bikes were made to be taken outside and ridden!! Interesting project, tho, I will keep reading..maybe someone will have another idea!!

While not an expert at silkscreening, I recently talked to a silkscreen printer about just this subject, and he described to me the exact process in detail. Alas, I can't recall it all, but I'm probably going to try printing up some PX10 decals eventually (perhaps this fall, when I have free time and plentiful access to a printing studio). If anyone is interested, I'll go pick the guy's brain again. From what I recall of silkscreening during my brief sojurn in art school (I dropped out after two years), it's not a difficult process.

Poguemahone: I sorely regret repainting my PX 10 25yrs ago.
But the original paint was terrible, chipping all over and rusting, it was the only solution at the time.
I have often thought of redoing the bike with the checkerboards
and lions but founder on the decals both Peugeot and Reynolds. I wonder how well Epson's archival inks would fare. A bike is a pretty good test bed for light resistance. Steve