Has anyone tried applying the new waterslide decal directly to the graphite blank? (no microsol) I know they recomend not to do this, but I'm thinking of giving it a try so that I only have to put on one coat of LS supreme.

I've done this on gloss and matte blanks; got by with it a few times on matte blanks, then it gave me some trouble so I don't do it on those anymore. On gloss blanks, I've never had trouble doing it. Mick et al have posted where the decal looks pretty cool, like it's "floating" when placed on top of a layer of rod finish. I'm going to try this next.
I've put decals on top of marbling with a clear coat on top of the marbling first, it did look pretty nice at the time; didn't think to REALLY look it over that closely though, and wish now that I had...

It just worked great for me on a black matte finish blank. Decal was from Jimi at Decal Connection and now looks great under two coats of LS Supreme. It looks as if it was hand lettered with no sign of the decal edges or bubbles. I will try to post a picture.

Putter,
What didn't you like about putting a decal on the marble? How would you have done it differently?
Ron

There wasn't anything at all that I didn't like, Ron. I just wished I'd looked at it closer before handing it over for this "floating" look that Mick et al are talking of...
I thought every one of them that I've put on marbling looked very, very nice.

I do find that waterslides are difficult to get to "slide around" on top of the 3 different brands of rod finish I've tried so far until I scuffed lightly with gray Scotchbrite first-THEN they slide for me. I do only the bit of area that the decal is going to be placed on and then give another thin coat to the entire section of marbling.

Putter



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2005 01:58PM by Randy Parpart (Putter).

decals directly on blank. i do it all the time. the decals slide easily for positioning and i've had no problem at all.

the floating decal sounds interesting. i guess i'll have to give it a try.

If you would spray a mist of water on the place you will put the waterslide,then they move very easily.

I posted a photo some time back of one of my decals. I tried not using the base coat of finish and found the result had a milky/opaque look around the decal. I then followed Jimi's instructions and used a thin coat of finish, waited for it to dry, then applied the decal and followed it up with another heavier coat of finish, The result was perfect. I haven't had one fail since. It does have the "floating" appearance Putter describes.

I guess I never did say what I've been doing on matte blanks. I just masked off the area and shot it with some Krylon clear gloss. 15 minutes later I could put the waterslide on with great results.

But now, I think I'm going to try the finish and see this "floating" look for myself; I would imagine, like most of these little things in rod building, a camera just does not capture it.

Place droplets of 50% diluted a decal setting solution (Microsol) on the decal area, slide the decal onto the solvent and it will be very easy to position plus the solvent will do its job in getting the decal to adhere to the blank. Go around the edges with a soft brush of solvent to seal them. These are old model railraod tricks where we needed to get decals to fit snugly over the many raised details on the models we built.