View Single Post
Old 06-16-06 | 08:58 PM
  #3  
jwc
Senior Member
 
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 399
Likes: 0
From: North Carolina

Bikes: Specialized (2) Trek 400, Raleigh 3spd

Kinda on topic...if nothing else, it may help someone with a similar problem as I had.

The Raleigh 3spd I got from my dad was in pretty good shape paint-wise. Faded a bit, but a good polishing brought the shine back out.

The biggest problem was the decals were "lifting" away from the paint surface. I checked online and couldn't find any reproductions. Fortunately, the decals were not cracking, just lifting up. I soaked the decals by spraying water on them, every ten minutes or so, for an hour, then, I got out a bottle of decal set and applied that to the decals several times. Eventually, they layed back down and look almost perfect.

If you are not a model builder, decal set solution is sold at hobby stores. It is used to soften a decal and make it follow every tiny contour on the surface of a model. I used to build model trains, so I had some laying around. I don't know if it will work in every case, or if I just got lucky, but if you have a problem such as I, you might give it a try.
jwc is offline  
Reply