Raleigh Decals needed
 

I need Raleigh Sports decals for a '66. I've seen a few things on ebay and am wondering if anyone has had experience with the following seller: qualtrough2004

http://myworld.ebay.com/qualtrough2004/
full set available here.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Raleigh-Bicycle-...item230bb8d12d
I'll ask some questions about them.


I've sent emails to Cyclomondo but he's on holiday apparently and I'm not sure what he has in regards to the various styles of decals.


Any other good options? I can't afford $14 for each little decal but I'm hoping to get something that works well.

There is Velocals

hlloydcycles.com

They're in England and have a truly astonishing catalog, a pdf that you can download and drool over at your leisure. Whether they have exactly the decals you want, is a crapshoot; but with Raleigh it's a pretty good bet.

I briefly skimmed Velocals, didn't see anything for the OP as Velocals' offerings for Raleigh begin with '70.

you might try that bike shop in London, I think. Oh man...just had brain fade. Lloyd cycles? do a search. he has a vast decal catalogue but very few illustrations or pics.

I've bought decals from hlloydcycles before (haven't used them yet though). PDF listing is here:
http://www.hlloydcycles.com/pdflistlatest.pdf

I got the Cyclomondo stickers. Overpriced,and, being stickers, not all that durable. Look great though.

I'd rather have had $12.95 stickers that I could afford to replace every so often since, if you ride the bike, they are going to get damaged.

I got a set of 531 stickers from Cyclomondo and they're beautiful, he does great work and ships fast although he is in Australia so it takes a week or so for your order to show up.

......And if it's not in the catalogue, contact Nick Tithecott there. He's pretty much a one man band, at least as far as the decals go - and is a keen cyclist who likes to ride his bike, so may take a bit of time to get round to answering your e-mail, but its worth waiting for. His products are either original stock or truly authentic reproductions; no thick vinyls if they should be micro thin water slides. I've not yet found better decals, a more knowledgeable vendor or better overall value. Also, he's in England but NOT in London (London is a city in the South of England) H Lloyd Cycles in in the North West at Penrith, Cumbria - a few miles short of the border with Scotland. My American geography is pretty poor, so I'm not having a "pop" here just pointing out that at present our 12" of snow in the South melted yesterday, Penrith still has it, with more forecast over the next few days. Might make post, etc. a bit difficult for a very short while.

Thanks.
I'll send some emails across the Pond and see what comes of it.
In the mean time I'll probably buy the full sheet of decals to see what they look like in person. If not up to par then it'll just adorn my bike toolbox or a future flip.
I'll have to try the DIY water slides sometime.

Edit: bought the full sheet. I'll post some closeups and such, report on how they look. It's nice to find an affordable full set, if they'll do the trick.

Saw these, not sure if it helps:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Raleigh-Bicycle-...#ht_500wt_1156

Oh, sorry, see that's what YOU posted. Nick at Lloyds is a good source too, seems to have a lot of Raleigh stuff.

I bought the ALPS 5000 (now obsolete) years ago that can make transparent waterslides with gold and white and silver. Quite a pain to print as you need to built up undercoats of white and/or silver under to make them solid, but I did a few frames and had them clear coated and they came out pretty well. But they are impossibly fragile if not clear coated. I don't know if any other company ever brought out a similar printer.

There are also pressure sensitive inkjet vinyl that can be printed and clear coated but they need to be handcut to shape.

Honestly, I chased the decal thing for years, ITS A LOT OF WORK! I'll leave it to the other guys and pay their price!

Wow. I think he does great work. Prices are fair for the amount of work it takes AND they're available. I believe he's using signage materials, so about as good as can be: studier than waterslides I'd guess. Clear coat is always an option.

If you can do the art you can have them run at your local FastSigns.

Yeah, I got the stickers from "qualtrough2004" and was not impressed. I took a chance and it was mediocre. I gave him positive feedback because he sold as advertised but mentioned the quality is of novelty level, not high end restoration. I said that because the decals were old and the vinyl was shrinking on the sheet already, the adhesive is not the right type for this kind of application: was much more soft and cheap than a quality vinyl for metal application in a somewhat permanent situation. It was also too heavy a vinyl, too thick to look good in this application. The diecuts were hit too hard, perforating the paper and making clean removal hard. The diecuts were not centered well and the layout work was done poorly. And finally, all decals had 1/4" of space around them, and were essentially large blocks of clear vinyl with small decals on them. Too sloppy. I had to hand trim all the decals I did apply and a few were ruined by the dirty smudging ink and adhesive seeping from the edges.

I spent 10 years in printing and I'll be honest... I'm not being too picky.

I just got some 531 decals from cyclomondo today. These look great. Very nicely printed, material looks good. The only way these won't work is if I screw it up.