Making water-transfer decals

I needed some large water-transfer decals for the vintage speed-shop signage on my truck but wasn’t having any luck finding them, even with a Google search.

The search did turn up water-transfer decal paper for inkjet and laserjet printers, however, so I ordered some for a test, and so far it seems to be working okay.

In addition to making a large Crower Camshafts decal from a small one, I made a decal starting with a photocopy of an original piece of artwork. The artwork is the original hand-drawn logo that George DuVall made for his friend Eddie Meyer. Some years ago George’s son Gregory graciously allowed me to photocopy the art which is one of several proposed designs on the same piece of posterboard, and the one that was ultimately selected as the Meyer logo.




I first scanned the photocopy, then used super-simple Adobe PhotoDeluxe to size and sharpen the image and then fill it with color . . .






I used Microsoft Word to gang the logo, in two sizes, on a single sheet, then printed it on white water-transfer decal paper. I then “fixed” the decals with Krylon Crystal Clear, cut them apart, and applied them as I would any water-transfer decal.

 

Wow! That opens up a million possibilities of cool stuff! I had no idea that could be done.
BTW, I'm wearing a shirt right now with that particular Crower logo on it. Something about a "Bing's" speed shop. I bought it from mister Tardel's pit's out on the salt this summer.Ever heard of it? Heh heh....

 

Lookin' good! Be aware that they are NOT waterproof, even when coated with that Krylon spray.
Check this Tech-O-Matic I posted in January: Decals

 

Enjoy these, I put these in a zip file for a post about decals back in March.
ZIP file of cl***ic decals

WWS

 

Looks good V8
I did some the same way for a vintage gas pump. Afterwards I was thinking about trying some with automotive urethane clear.
Has anybody tried that?

 

I missed your thread, whizzerick. Nicely done and informative. At present I'm confined to Adobe PhotoDeluxe (until my daughter teaches me Photoshop fundamentals).

I'm going to experiment with some clears other than Krylon to try to find one that will make the decal waterproof.

 

WWS -- All I get is gibberish when I try to open the file. Any other ways of sending it?

 

the ones on the pumps doors were done in photo shop by the lady at my work. shes good

 

[ QUOTE ]
WWS -- All I get is gibberish when I try to open the file. Any other ways of sending it?



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AV8 Right click on the link and choose "save link target as" from the resulting menu. (I'm ***uming you're on a windows based computer)
holding down a shift key while clicking the link normally should also give you a save option.

mike

 

Awesome info!! I have some vintage Decals that I need to do the same work to.This was a big help..

 

WWS, missed that post of cl***ic decals the first time, thanks.

 

Fine, then how do I open it? After it's saved I find no indication of it anywhere. Please excuse my computer illiteracy.

 

AV8, you need to unzip it (the .zip file extension means it been compressed to save space). If you are using WinXP you should be able to unzip it, otherwise download a program like winzip (its free).