Labeling Rods? Water Slide Decals?

[CNC Molds N Stuff]

My first thought is water slide decal paper and some form of clear seal coat.  Are there any things to avoid?  Products to avoid?  Seal coats that work better than others?  

[Lilpdriverrat]

It really depends on how many you plan on doing.  I have not had good luck with the print your self waterslide decals unless you are putting it on a white blank.  The colors you print do not show up well on dark blanks...they almost become transparent.

 

You can get some print media from swampland tackle and print your own but you will see a background and can be a bit tricky.  $12.95

 

You can get decalconnection.com to make your decals for you.  They do great work for good prices.  Great choice for small amounts of decals.

 

If you plan on doing a lot of these you may also look into buying a K-sun  PEARLabel and print your own.  Can be had for around $250.

 

I have used all of the above and will stick with my PEARLabel unless I want a specific color that I cannot print myself and then I use decal connection

[CNC Molds N Stuff]

I am going to give waterslides and epoxy a try. 

[RayburnGuy]

Epoxy is probably your best bet for a top coat when covering waterslide decals Bob. Stay away from top coats with solvents in them. I tried using DN S81 on one of the first decals I did and it wrinkled the decal pretty bad. And don't forget to use a fixative spray to seal the ink on the decal before applying it. The ink needs to dry first and then the fixative is applied over that. I forget how much time is recommended to allow the fixative to dry, but whatever product you decide to use should come with a set of instructions. I've been using Papilio decal paper and their fixative spray and am well pleased with it. Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to match the decal paper to whatever printer you have be it ink jet or laser jet.

 

good luck,

 

Ben

[rhahn427]

Irtgroup.com has a label printer that allot of rod builders like a lot for $199 .......... Was talked about on rodbuilding.org

[Lilpdriverrat]

Irtgroup.com has a label printer that allot of rod builders like a lot for $199 .......... Was talked about on rodbuilding.org

This is what I now use and it works great! Metallic silver and gold P O P on the blank and the edges turn invisible Edited May 13, 2014 by Lilpdriverrat

[CNC Molds N Stuff]

From what I have read laser toner is not water soluble like ink jet cartridge ink and does not require a fixative.  I could be wrong, but... I happen to have two laser printers in the shop so I went with laser compatible paper.  

[RayburnGuy]

I don't have any experience with the laser paper so let us know how it works out for you.

 

good luck,

 

Ben

[CNC Molds N Stuff]

So far so good, sorta.  The paper I got was supposed to be laser safe, but I got a little reprinting, and more than half the sheet came out bad.  I still got 8 decent decals.  I did not use a squeegee or a brush to place the decals.  I just slid them in place and gently straightened them with a finger tip, then I used an air nozzle and very low pressure to work from the center out to push any trapped water out from under them.  

 

I have not cleared coated them yet.  I figured I'ld let them dry in the sun for a day.  I just texted a buddy who does rod repairs to get some flex coat from him.  

 

Here are the results so far.

 

 

 

 

[jdr418]

Bob,

 

     There's a real good tutorial on water slide decals at rodbuildingtutorials.com.  It is located in the misc. tutorials section and is by Dave Rogers.  It is several pages and has good color photos.

[CNC Molds N Stuff]

Thanks, I'll have to take a look at it.  

[CNC Molds N Stuff]

I completed these rods a few days ago.  A fishing buddy of mine lent me his rod turner, and some flex coat to finish them.  They finished up nicely.  

 

However, I don't think I would do this with laser paper again.  No fixative was needed, but the printing process was kind of onerous.  I tried to white lettering on a black background (for other rods) and black lettering on clear for the white rods you see in this thread.  I got a few decent black on clear as you see, but most of the sheet was damaged from over printing and reprinting.  With the white lettering on black background the heavy use of black to create the background gummed up my laser printer.  I had to run a dozen pages through it before it would print again without jamming.  Ick.  I read one article which indicated you should run these through with the printer cold and just turned on after sitting idle and powered down.  I tried it and the result was not much better.  Maybe some other lasers would handle it better than mine.  I don't know.  

 

So, if I do more of these I'll go with the inkjet paper and fixative.

 

I think I'll also make up my own rod turner with multiple drives.   My buddy's was made with an old rotisserie motor.  It had plenty of torque.  I suspect it could turn 5 or 10 rods as easily as one.    

Edited July 1, 2014 by Bob La Londe

[RayburnGuy]

One thing about the "fixative" Bob. You don't have to buy the fixative they offer where you get the ink jet decal paper. First time I bought the fixative and decal paper from the same supplier. After running out of their fixative in the middle of a project I decided to try U-Pol Clear and it worked just fine.

 

Ben