I've seen some photos of some pretty neat waterslide decals/scenes put on rods lately. Having never made my own decals I'm wondering if the do-it-yourself decals are going to hold up to UV. Is there certain paper, ink, or finish used to prevent sun fading?

I've used Ink-Jet waterslide decals on all of my rods and haven't had any fade yet. I have a HP Photojet printer and apply 2-3 coats of Krylon Crystal Clear before appying to the rod. Just make sure that you apply the Krylon BEFORE you cut it to exact size, or you won't be able to seperate it from the backing.

I am also curious about this topic. so any ink jet printer would be capable of printing these labels? with the correct paper of coarse

Andrew
Port Orchard, WA
The Pacific Northwest

Gentlemen,

I feel all pigments will fade in time, some just take longer than others. Reds and Yellows and the various tones thereof, will go the quickest. The manufacturer of the inks you intend to use could possibly tell you about the colorfastness of their inks. Check with the epoxy manufacturer also to see if UV inhibitors exist in the finish and how they slow down the UV damage. To get the best quality image from an inkjet, consider a high quality coated paper that allows the ink to stay on top instead of wicking through the fibers like in the lower quality papers.

In the photographic industry, pigment stability with modern day printing systems is of the utmost importance. However, they are not used on products that see a lot of outside UV. These images are contained to homes, offices and other places of business. Some business that have flourescent lighting usually sleeve the tubes with UV filters because this type of lighting is very stressful to artwork.

The IRIS prints of modern day Giclee printing are very stable and allow the artist to "computerize" his art so he can afford short runs of prints without paying an arm and a leg for set up fees and color seperations and still be attractive to the art investment customers. So, there are inks out there that are stable but may not be in the "consumer" arena of home products.

Charlie