clear over vinyl decals

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:43 pm
got a 98 silverado in my shop-in-a-garage. replaced lower door skins and rockers and its gettin new paint. it has them fancy schmancy Z71 decals on the back of the bed, which are gettin replaced( they were a lil beat up). im plannin on, when i get to it, 2 coats of clear, wetsand entire truck, put on the decals, then 2 more coats. ive done some readin here and there, but something i haven read is ont he decal itself; seems that the decal shoud be scuffed up for the CC bite into it, but I dont know. 1st time dealin with decals and the owner wants em buried in clear( personally i do too).
so, is there any special prep i should do to the surface of the decals before shooting clear on em?
********** universal clear, if that makes any difference.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 6:58 am
I have never been a fan of clearing over decals,,,but if you have to, Sherwin Williams makes a clear adhesion promoter for plastic in a rattle can that you should use.

Make sure you dont run the clear around the decal............
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 1:47 am
Only 2 coats clear?
Ok however you choose to do it b4 your first full coat hit the decals feathering out around the outside edges.
Make sure it is good and wet for a few inches out. Let it flash good then start your 2 coats.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 11:41 am
Motorcycle painters do it every day. I was really "skeered" on a bike I did last Summer - buddy had to order the expensive decals from England for a Kawasaki triple - and I had never sprayed over before, told him no guarantees , came out beautiful. If applied wet (best way) give 'em a week to dry. I have a friend that paints alot of sport bikes (alot of graphics), he'll use adhesion promoter (Bulldog) on large decals. Hit it light first couple coats to seal, then spray normal but watch for runs/pools on sharp edges of the decals.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 12:08 pm
Just slap the decals on it after paint and call it done the way the factory did it. No need to reinvent the wheel here. There are millions of these things on the road with no clear on them and they hold up just fine.



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 12:41 pm
welp,i prefer to do it the way the owner wants it. yeah, theres a lot of truck/cars out there with vinyl graphics slapped on top of CC, and theres a lot of vinyl graphics that were done that way that are in rough shape.

gonna be 4 total coats of clear when done.



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 11:08 pm
What are you guys thoughts on sanding the decals with 600 after there applied so the clear would have something to stick to?

I've also herd of people using waterslide paper has anyone ever used it?



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 8:39 pm
My son uses waterslide decals all the time. Prints them on an Inkjet printer (follow directions that come with the decals). He buries them under clear. BTW after applying them he only waits about a hour before clearing. Never had a problem. Here's a link to some of the stuff he did. All decals shown he made in Adobe Photoshop...
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20366



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 11:38 pm
nytrainer wrote:My son uses waterslide decals all the time. Prints them on an Inkjet printer (follow directions that come with the decals). He buries them under clear. BTW after applying them he only waits about a hour before clearing. Never had a problem. Here's a link to some of the stuff he did. All decals shown he made in Adobe Photoshop...
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20366


Thats pretty cool. does he do anything to the paper as far as cleaning it or anything like that before putting on the clear?



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PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:24 am
No, after he puts them on he pats them dry and sometimes hits it quickly with low heat from a hair dryer if it's not not warm out to ensure the water has evaporated. The waterslide decal is a plastic of sorts (how it was explained to him) so spraying clear over it is (has) never been a problem. He has some going on a year or so old. He grabs an image off the net, sizes it in Photoshop and prints it on an inkjet printer. These waterslide sheets are 8.5 x 11" so he tries to maximize the space and fills the sheets with as many images as possible. Because it is an inkjet printer a clear spray has to be put over the freshly printed sheet to protect it h(otherwise when you put the decal sheet in water to separate it from it's backing the ink will disintegrate). The manufacturer of the decal recommends Krylon clear. BTW he has used Krylon and then used ********** clear over the krylon with no reactions but now he always sprays the decal sheet with ********** clear and after it sets up he cuts the image from the sheet. He applies the decal over base coat (or intercoat clear) and after the water is dried from the surface clears the whole panel. Most jobs he will use 2 or 3 coats then block entire surface to level the decal and flow coats the panel again. You can hardly detect the decal. Basically he has progressed from applying the decal over the final clear coat (when he was using rattle cans to paint) to burying it deep in the clear coat now that he has learned to use basecoat/clearcoat.
These are his experiences but not saying definitively that this is the way itshould be or needs to be done. Hope that explanation helps some.
NYT

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