Having spent many hours searching this and other forums on how best to protect my decals on a fixer-upper, i thought a thread might be useful collating my research for others facing the same situation.

I have a newly powder coated frame and bought some waterslide decals from bicyclebones on ebay.

I duly applied the decals. It wasn't a complete success - I was disappointed with the quality of the printing. I got some silvering and the chain guard decal goes over a change in height. As the decal dried, it has pulled away from the indent corner so breaks and flakes if anything touches it in the corner (hope you can follow that!)

Noticing the fragility of the decals even once applied and dried, I was certain I needed a clear coat to protect them. I had read many purists say they didn't clear coat them in the old days. Well, I'm not a purist and I doubt they were using fragile copies like me, on a powdercoated frame!

I spent hours researching which clear coat might be safe so as not to dissolve my poorly applied decals. Eventually I settled on a Dupli-color acrylic laquer. I chose laquer rather than enamel, as I found a post on this forum which said the powder is effectiely a laquer anyway, rather than an enamel. Not sure if it's true, but at least it was some reasoning. By this point I was terrified if I chose the wrong one, my decals would dissolve! I had toyed with a 2 part auto clear coat, but the manufacturer advised against using a 2 part clear coat, if the paint wasn't 2 part. Also it was more expensive.

So I masked around the decal, offset slightly to cover the edges. After applying 2 very light coats and not seeing any damage to the decal, I gave it a further 2 thick coats. So far, so good,

Today I removed the masking and the edges are awful. As I peeled away the masking, the clear coat has lifted with the tape. If i try and scrape off the lifted pieces, more breaks away. I wonder if it's becuase I didn't roughen the surface up first. I purposely chose not to because I didn't want to damage the decal given how fragile they are. How are you supposed to do this?! Attached is a photo of what I mean.

I've still got the decals on the frame left to do. Before I mess those up too, any advice on how I can salvage what I've got, or how I should be doing it to avoid the problems? Should I try and carefully abrade the offset between the decal and masking edge?