Will someone point me to the proper thread (no pun intended) that deals with the application and over coating of a decal like the one St Croix ships with its rod blanks?

I seem to remember people saying that the blank needs to be "roughed up" for the decal to stick properly and also that spraying Krylon over the decal works.

After visiting the merrick tackle website, it appears that there is a completely different method where you do NOT rough up the blank and where you use a two-part epoxy instead.

What's the consensus, specifically for a decal like St Croix provides?

Thanks

no need to ruff the blank some reccomend a first coat of epoxy then apply others just apply and coat wich is what i do i apply the decal then two coats of epoxy i have never had one lift on me............everyone does it differnt though i would never rough the blank up though on certain rods you would see it through the decal..........

This site recomends the Krylon spray over coat, I use flexcoat high build and add a bit more to the decal area in an attempt to get away with one coat, which will happen on occasion. A good trick to making sure the decal stays down is to clean the surface well with denatured alcohol, then do not touch the sticky backside of the decal at the narrow points like fins, nose, or corners of the decal; I try to trim the decal down making a tab I will use for application and trim off the clear blurry tag later, in that, even the exacto tip distrubs the clear uniformity of the decal background, Use the tip of your exacto knife mid way on the decal to align if no alignment tab can be engineered..(A big retctangle label I just touch down the horizontal centerline of the decal when aligning and once correct I flatten from the center outward) after application wrap with a single sheet of paper and burnish well. If a second coat of FC is required I knock down any high points/fly specs/burrs with an exacto knife before the 2nd coat application. I also slightly offset the decal to one side of the blank depending on which hand the client fishes with, The decal is never top dead center, I do this with fish decals also so it can be seen easier in its entirity; this offset also allows me to personalize the rod on the far side of the blank, instead of the bottom