Applied decals? Post your experiences, adventures, techniques and fubars here.
I recently acquired another French bike. Pretty good condition. But as is common with bikes from the mid 70's, the Reynolds decals were shot. One of the fork blade decals was OK, but the other was mostly gone. I made the decision to replace them.
These are the vinyl replacements I ordered. To be blunt, I found these less than acceptable. My intention is not to bash the supplier here, someone we all know, but I just couldn't see putting these on a fine bike. Printed badly out of register and the line width on the lettering all over the place. One of the fork decals off center. I suppose 95% of people would probably just stick these on and forget it. I'm quite particular. To his credit, the vendor offered to send replacements.
I'm usually very particular about "period correct" too, but despite the fact that the decals below were incorrect for the bike, a few years early, I decided to use these. They were just so superior and they are water slide decals, as were the originals. I obtained these from H. Lloyd cycles a year or so ago not really knowing what I'd do with them. Then this bike came along.
Water slide decals are a bit tricky to work with. Very delicate compared with vinyl stickers, and they definitely require a clear coat to protect them. I applied them then went about trying to figure out what to coat them with. In the instructions Nick at Lloyd's recommends oil based varnish only for water slide decals. I ended up using Winsor Newton clear gloss artist's varnish and sprayed it through my airbrush. Kind of a white knuckle moment as the varnish needed to be thinned a bit to run through the airbrush and with solvents in the varnish one never knows if that first coat is going to lift or crinkle the decal. The trick is to make the first coat a light mist coat and let it dry thoroughly before applying additional coats. I masked off the frame and sprayed. I applied three light coats then one last wet one without the masking.
Yeah. They're wrong for the bike. And the seat tube decal is even in the wrong place compared to the original. Something I normally wouldn't do. An intentional departure. But they're nice and look so much more "authentic" than vinyl stickers. To me. They look a little glossy, and I may knock the gloss back a tad with ultra fine polishing compound when completely dry. In a month or so.
