back when JR was in LaJolla (or thereabouts) he made some custom sets from my artwork which was a good experience, but later when i needed something new (custom-printed from my supplied artwork) he said "no can do: we are no longer making custom printed decals at all" only selling what they made for their own "catalogue".
Which I believe is the MO for Greg Softley (who I recommend) as well as H.Lloyd. The only guy I know of who *might* take on custom work is Gus Salmon in Florida. who gets high praise from many of his customers (but I could not work with him on one project he bid on for me: not over $$ but ownership of the art).
Otherwise there are still a couple "hobbyists" who own the ALPS printer needed to print long-lasting ink on vinyl or water-slide substrate, but most of them are connected with the Model Train and Model Aircraft crowd, so hard to find searching for bicycle decal printing.
And there's still SSSInk, still in business with a huge catalog, AFAIK

This is distressing. Velocals has been a reliable supplier for several full restorations and several other revisions. Their work was appreciated and will be missed.

Big bummer. They have aided the renovation and restoration of a number of my bikes as well. Going out on a high note with them supplying decals for my OS Paramount (I sent them finished photos). Thinking maybe I scoop up a number of Trek seat tube panels since that era of Trek is my favorite and I'm totally not planning on ever buying another one...

I did the same thing this morning.

Dang.

Just got my order in for a Medici set!Trying to think of what other decals I will need in the future.
I hope they don't run out of stock of whatever I come up with.​​​​​​​
​​​​​​​Thanks for your service to the C&V community Velocals! We will really miss you!!

I ordered sets for Fuji Pro and Motobecane Le Champion. I need a couple others but they are not offered by Velocals as standard. I can understand the business model change.

Bought some Simplex derailleur decals, excellent product and service. A+

I too will miss Velocals. Always seemed to have the decals for the bikes that I have restored in the past 10 years.The prices were always low enough to keep my costs reasonable. Especially on the plain jane bikes (fuji, schwinn, sekai. sekine, nishiki, stc) sold around my neck of the woods.

Just received my Univega decal order that I managed to squeak in under the wire. They kept me well-informed throughout of the progress of the order.

Wow! I guess I'm the last to know. Here anyway. Is there an alternative source? Certainly there is a thread here, which came along in my absence. Just link it, if you feel so inclined.
TIA

Merged threads.

Here's the same page as above but with all the vendor links, thought this might be useful, maybe even a sticky. cb400bill

Thank you so much for visiting Velocals.com

As of 1/1/23 we have closed our doors

Alternative decal vendor links provided below

reach out to them to inquire about

making your rare bike decals

We wish you all the best with your restorations

United States

Gus Salmon - https://www.facebook.com/gsalmondecals/

SSSink - https://sssink.com/bicycle-restoration

Porkchop BMX - https://velocals.com/Porkchop%20BMX

Crawfords Decals - https://stores.ebay.com/Crawfords-Decals

Bicycle Bones - https://velocals.com/Bicycle%20Bones

Australia

Cyclomondo - https://www.cyclomondo.net/

BMX Products - https://www.bmxproducts.com/

United Kingdom

H Lloyd Cycles - https://h-lloyd-cycles.myshopify.com/en-us

BicycleDecals - https://bicycledecals.net/

BicycleStickers - https://www.bicyclestickers.co.uk/

RetroDecals - https://www.facebook.com/retrodecals/

Europe

EgoVinyls - https://www.ebay.com/str/egovinyls

SlikGraphics - https://www.slikgraphics.com/

^thanks for that.

Dang it! I was wondering what happened to Velocals and what alternatives there might be, and finally found this thread searching on google since the 'advanced search' function here seems to be broken. (The general search for Velocals brings up almost 500 threads or posts, in random order.)

The project I'm on, a Univega Alpina Pro, just got a bit harder, at least if I want decals for the powdercoated frame. And it looks like they'll have to be custom. Ah well.

It's not broken. It works just as poorly as it ever has.

Best way to search for threads in bikeforums is to use Google. Try bikeforums.net: velocals for example.

And keep in mind that SSSink only sells to established frame builders and painters.

That's the problem, I can't. I get an error whenever I try to use the advanced search.

TypeError: Illegal offset type in ..../search.php on line 2099

Sometimes it's on line 2077, but since I've been using the forum again in the last month or so, it always happens, on Chrome and on Safari (Mac, obv), and on Chrome/iOS. I'm in touch with internet brands support, they seem to be trying to help. I think. [Wish I could use my 'shruggy' text emoji here, but some characters not allowed.]

I'd tried all that, quit the browser, cleared history and cache, tried a different browser, etc, a few times, a few weeks back.

However I finally did hit on a solution: I had signed out of my BF account, intending to sign back in and try again, though I'd done that before without success. Instead I did the advanced search WITHOUT signing in and...it worked! So someone casually browsing the forum gets better results than someone who pays for a 'premium' membership, that's some business model Internet Brands has here!

MEANWHILE and more relevantly to this thread (which I apologize for diverting), I am searching through the decal providers and drawing a blank on the Univega Alpina Pro. If I find someone to copy them (maybe Mohr Designs on Etsy) it'll be with vinyl rather than waterslide decals, no clearcoat over, just accepting that they're not that authentic looking. Powdercoat won't be quite like the original paint, either.

As far as decal sources go...

I tried Velocals several years ago for my Sannino. They had decals, but the graphics weren't even close so i returned them. (Ironically, it seems that a couple years later they had much more accurate ones).

I post this not as a criticism of Velocals, but as an alternative to people. You can get decals done at any local shop that does decals for commercial vehicles or custom stuff for personal vehicles.

I had a local sign shop make up a couple of sets for me. I didn't have the originals. I had photos from the web. After some give and take and revisions, they made up great ones. If you have the originals, even in poor shape, the process would be very simple for this sort of thing.

The point is that the material they printed them on - to me - seemed to be identical to the Velocals material. It's not identical to the originals that were on the bike when I got it, but identical to what Velocals was using.

And about 6 years down the line, they still look like new. So it seems that the durability of the material and ink used by this shop is very similar if not functionally identical to what Velocals used.

I later found some old stock OEM decals for my bike on Ebay. I haven't put them on yet because the ones I had made are very nice. But comparing the two, they are similar enough graphically and colors to be indistinguishable except maybe side by side, examined carefully.

Another UK option that doesn’t seem to show up in Google searches is https://wanit.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d1.html. I’ve worked with them on decals for a Lemond Buenos Aires and had a very good experience (some color mod was needed). Just ordered a set for my ‘73 Condor.

The Bicycle Bones link doesn’t work or BMX Porkchop link work.

Another source is Bicals, an ebay seller from Serbia.