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.

Anyone notice the goof in the next to last pic?

Looks good!

I wonder why solvent based? The adhesive is activated by water (probably albumin) but once dry takes a LOT of moisture to release, the inks on the other hand are definitely solvent based and you have to be very careful not to melt your decal, glad that this worked!!

I agree with the new repro decals, have bought a few sets on the bay, and pretty disappointed with the quality/accuracy.

It's going to take a lot of coats to build up any film thickness with that technique.

Would you mind sharing your technique for removing the original decals?

Yah.....the apostrophe at the end of "REYNOLDS".......It should not be there,......but you can barely notice it anyway. Maybe one can always paint it over with some black modeler's paint.
I suspect it was done to avoid copyright problems with Reynolds TI.

Chombi

No paint cup

I bought 2 sets of NOS reynolds 531 decals this year, one set is on the PUCH, the other is for the future.


decal tricks.

My Moser junior I noticed had the lower band decal exactly where the campagnolo deraileur will go,
(I am replacing the crankset from ofmega 36t to campy 48)
as the frame was bare, I mounted the bike in the vise, put the electric heatgun down the seat tube-and vented out the BB
I waited untill the tube was nice and toasty, then I could just start to losen the lower decal, I got a razor blade under the edge, and slowly working with temp and patience removed the band, it is in perfect condition-
I will mount up the cranks and deraileur and then use adheasive to re-locate the decal slightly higher then where it was.

wow- this is a 33 year old frame and i could remove the original decal intact!

Hold up. Is that a Le Champion? Did I miss something??

I set my H Lloyds decals last monday. Unfortunately I didn´t take pics of the process, it wasn´t a process im proud of anyways. Lots of try and error. I set the waterslide decals using Humbrol Decal Fix to wet the designated area on the frame. This decals are really easy to break and I found out if you want to move them as to correct the possition you must get them wet again with the decal fix or waters, as as soon as the dry they become the most breakable material ever. After drying a whole night i sprayed them with "Testors All purpose DullCote" which was easy to apply. I bought both on a model shop in Argentina so they must be pretty findable around the world. I´ll upload pictures as soon as i get my dimples chromed.

I was so proud when I set my colnago d/t decals on a freshly painted frame, several coats of clear. Then someone pointed out that they were to low. I centered them on the tube and didnt realize they are suppose to be raised a bit. Now it bugs the hell out of me.

Actually, Chombi, H. Lloyd's is the only repro outfit that is licensed by Reynolds to do re-pops. That "apostrophe" is on both sides of the 531. I think it's proper for some mid to late sixties Reynolds decals. Maybe in to the early 70's. I know I've seen them before but can't remember at the moment. If he had produced the mid '70s gold band decals in water slides I certainly would have used those but, he only does them in vinyl now so I opted for these, which I think are excellent despite being too early for the bike. The greens are too green, darker than the "531"s on my other French bikes , but the quality of the print is very good.

Heh heh....
In short, Snydermann, I just scraped them off. There were only remnants and even that fairly intact fork decal was dry and brittle. I used an extremely dull forty year old pocket knife and just sort of chipped them off, then finished up with Goof Off. Cleaned up very well.

Not yet. I'll post it up when I get her done. At the rate I'm going, might be this winter sometime.

Kind of un-clear to tell the truth, VJP. In the directions that came with the decals he says oil based varnish only, by which I assumed he meant good old fashioned marine varnish or similar. Just no lacquer based as the solvent used in lacquer would eat the decal. But then, on his web site decal FAQ he mentions Humbrol's clear model Polyurethane, difficult to find 'round here, or Plasticote spray , which I believe is also Poly based. He may be talking about his vinyl decals on the web site however. He has very few water slides anymore, apparently. So, I had to write to ask him. Now, I had an old can of very high quality spar varnish on the shelf, looked OK, but didn't trust it.
So I just took a shot with the clear artist's varnish. High quality, meant for oil paintings, but perhaps not as durable as a poly clear.
I thinned it just a bit with distilled turpentine rather than mineral spirits, again, afraid of melting the decal. But with a couple of light, dry-ish mist coats, it worked fine.

Should actually be single quotes around 531, which is accurate for some periods...

Yeah, that's it. Any idea what era? I'm thinking sixties?
Like I said, I wouldn't normally think of putting 60's decals on a 70's bike but, got frustrated and went ahead. I just may order a set of Nick's mid 70's gold band vinyls just to see how they look and if good...some day...may re-do these. I love to tinker.

Awesome. Beautiful bike, and quite a nice little stable mate for your TC.

Oh btw, I guess my avatar speaks for my relationship to decals. Although I do have a replacement set floating around...they're different than the original ones, so I guess I fail on all counts.

Boy, you said a mouthful, Docbilly. I used decal wetting solution too (Microsol) and you have about 2.1 seconds to get them positioned. The solution softens the decal so it "sucks down" against the substrate and woe to him that tries to manipulate them too much. I came close to screwing one up but saved it, losing only a hair of the black outline on a fork decal. They're extremely delicate.
Not for the faint of heart. I've decal-ed lots of model airplanes, but that was 45 years ago!

Wow, that is good info and nice frame. The Legnano got new downtube decals (supplied by Velocal). I also purchased the stickers for the stem but chose to use the stem with worn original stickers and keep the repops for another project. I was able to buy these DT stickers with a gloss coating that resembles the factory gloss.

I followed the instructions and it was easy and they came out flawless. I have applied thousands of stickers to bikes but was actually pretty freaked out during this process but it was fun and quite rewarding to see the end result.

Thanks due ruote. I was bewitched by the silver lilac Le Champion when I first saw one. A beautiful color. Hope to get it together while I still have a chance to ride it.

Having recently getting a '79 Mondia frame that was repainted...it came w/o decals. I ordered the appropo one's from Cyclomondo, as well as several Reynolds tubing decals to go along w/ the period correct & tubing type of decals. At first I was struggling w/ the process, but through several emails w/ Greg I found that getting them off the backing paper wasn't as difficult as I was making it out to be....peel & stick!

A day or two later, after putting them on, I found that some were in the wrong spot or didn't meet up just right or weren't spaced correctly...back to Cyclomondo for more...lol. What I did find out was, I could actually peel off the first one's I put on w/o too much difficulty, by being careful when lifting them off, then re-applying them once again. I did this a few times w/o destroying them till I got it right...

Since I already have another Mondia, a guideline was there for me to follow & the main decal placement went easily. I did wet the area w/ water prior to putting the bigger decals on, so proper placement is facilitaed. It was the smaller one's that posed the problem w/ location, location, location.

I really liked this one!

Since I couldn't find the correct decal for an early '60's Peugeot, I finally resorted to making my own waterside for the down tube. Here it is. I haven't clearcoated it, but maybe I will sometime.

I haven't had any problems clearcoating decals after applying them to the bike. I have experimented with clearcoat on waterslides that have not yet been applied and have ended up wrinkling the decal.

That was me