Headstock decal

[Chris Richards]

I think this is a bit of a long shot but I'm really out of ideas. It's to do with my latest guitar, the headstock is finished black, I designed a waterslide decal and printed it out on my inkjet printer and it looked great but once I applied it to the black headstock you can't see it, the print is too transparent, I've done it before over lighter colours or wood and it works fine. My next attempt was directly painting the decal on with paint Sharpies but it looks amateurish, I've also tried two decals on top of one another but it's still transparent.

I don't want to paint the headstock a different colour so has anybody got any ideas?

Thanks
Chris

[Rob Carty]

For years, Melvyn Hiscock has affixed his signature to headstocks using simple Sharpie-type indelible markers. It looks great. For a black headstock, Sharpie has several metallic colors (silver, gold) that would show up very nicely. Then there are Gibson-style inlays ... but I gather that's not something you're presently interested in. Good luck!

[Rob Carty]

One other thing. You can get some custom waterslide decals on eBay. Some of them use metallic ink -- not inkjets. The metallic ones may work much, much better. I believe Gibson uses similar decals on many models. It's worth a try and it costs only about $15-20 for multiple copies of the decal.

[Peter Wilcox]

The problem is that inkjet printers don't print with white ink (unless you want to buy one for $8000), so the transparent colors don't show on a dark background.

I've read of the following process, but don't know how well or if it works:

1)Print the image on the decal paper in black (or possibly any color) or maybe just print the image as is
2)Immediately, while the ink is still (hopefully) wet, sprinkle white embossing powder on it so that it sticks to the image, then shake off the excess
3) Heat with hair dryer or heat gun to melt and fix the powder to the image - you now have a white image
4) Print the original image again on top of it

The success of this would depend on excellent registration of your printer, wetness (stickiness) of the ink, and whether you can successfully print on an embossed surface.

Anyway, good luck.

[Steve Benford]

Chris. I use vinyl decals cut at my local sign shop. You can get any color you can think of. Theres even a guy in Japan that cut some for me with a Abalone look (see second pic). I typically just stick then over the top of the finish. Sometimes i'll clear over them. It takes a bit more clear to bury them however. They always look great, almost inlaid. Just a thought!

STEVE

[Rob Carty]

Steve, that's awesome!

Chris, here's a photo of something I did with an eBay-bought custom waterslide decal. As you can see, it showed up great.

[Chris Richards]

Hi

Thanks for your help everyone, the vinyl decals look great Steve, that's something I'll have to investigate, I'm guessing they're laser cut so I'm wondering if you can do more than one colour? I can't see why a kind of jigsaw couldn't be cut and make the decal out of a few pieces. I'll get investigating the possibilities.

Thanks for the help and the pictures
Chris

[Art Davila]

Chris. I use vinyl decals cut at my local sign shop. You can get any color you can think of. Theres even a guy in Japan that cut some for me with a Abalone look (see second pic). I typically just stick then over the top of the finish. Sometimes i'll clear over them. It takes a bit more clear to bury them however. They always look great, almost inlaid. Just a thought!

STEVE

I relly like the second decal, I like the abalone look without the fuss.

[Paul Rhoney]

Yeah, unfortunately there's a reason why good decals are so expensive. I use a dry-transfer style decal, which can come in a lot of different colors. After the initial setup for them to make the screen, my reorders run about $50 shipped for an 8.5x11" sheet of decals. I've shopped around a bit though, and from what I've gathered that's actually a pretty good price.

[Pete Halliday]

Paul, Can you share the name of your supplier and/or contact information? What finishes can you put over those after applying? Is it compatible with shellac as a sealer over the top? Thanks.

[Paul Rhoney]

Hey Pete. I get mine from a company called Camera Graphics in Portland, OR, their website is cgpdx.com. I can't' comment specifically on compatibility with shellac, as I've never tried it, but I have sprayed both nitro and urethane over the top with no negative effect.