Diary of an Exokutioner
Decaling page 3
So now we have reached this stage of the game. And you have done a great job. So you think!!
Well then lets keep it that way with applying the decals!!
Ok this can start a couple of ways and if you talk to 10 people you are going to get 10 different ways to prep your body for customs well this is mine. You can clear the body first before application or not your choice! some say before some say after its really up to u. as I have done both ways with the same results.
I tend to lean more to not clearing the customs as if you go too hard the custom will have a “over coated” look or a bubble look to it. Meaning that you cleared it too much and now you lose body lines and or headlights, taillight and what not!! Still a little confused? Well let say that you have paint on your customs…and now you are ready to decal it. Lets say you do a coat of clear to seal the paint and help the decals adhere better (which from what I can tell is why we clear the body first). Ok you have 1 coat down if you do not include the paint. Now you decal it …2 coats on the custom now…3 almost if you use white decal paper as white tends to be a little thicker that clear decal paper! Now that you have let it dry and you clear the car to seal the decal on the body. now at this point you want to hit it with nice coats for the ultra shine if you go to thick then you can lose all your bodylines and accessories that the body has to offer. Some that DD that you spent all that time on now will have lost those sweet headlights and now look like big drips of paint and all those body panel lines look like ripples in the paint!
Clear before or after your choice. But remember when clearing you have to a nice touch and know when to say that’s enough! If you are starting decaling for the first time I would recommend clearing a dummy body of first to get the feel for clear coating as you don’t want to find out later doing you custom and you should have kicked back on the clear and have to throw your custom in the thinner for a retry!! If you have this down and you are all good with clear I just wasted about 2 mins of your time!! Sorry!
Ok so here we are ready to go. Now first tip is after and I mean right after those decals spit out of your printer clear them with the clear. The ink will not stay on the paper by itself and will run off the decal as soon as you apply water. I again recommend Kyrlons triple thick clear gloss I know some of you have advanced knowledge of paint and clear coat and use high quality stuff but as a back alley auto body man I only have basic knowledge in this field and I am as good and anything I can buy a AutoZone or Canadian Tire for all us Cunucks out there!! SO at this point you use what works for you!!
Now I Let the decal sit for a bout at least and hour depending on the temp you dry them on but from my experience 2 hours is more than enough time and I have noticed that this is the best time to apply the decals. If you store them for later use (more and a day) seal them is a Lunch baggie or something that can be sealed as the elements can get at the decals and make them useless!! Never cut out your decals to the size you need them and then clear them. Doing this sometimes can seal them to the backing of the decal and you might ruin the decal pulling it off!! You don’t want to know how I figured that out!! A couple coats should be good to seal the ink on but again this comes with practice as some days you will coat them and everything will be all good then sometimes you will coat them and find the ink will run even when you did the same as before!
Coating some times can be a hit and miss job some hit the decals with a least 2 even coats and you should be good to go!!
Now on to the body. I will not be exploring application of white’s decals as I don’t have time or energy to waste on them! I hate white decals with a purple passion! You might find it will work for white but I just wanted to say that so any of you that follow this Diary and find that your white decal work is now all ****ed up and you don’t come looking for me!! Ok so now back to the Negative space you have heard me ***** about this Whole Diary! If you are doing Colors you need to use the color of the body as background and the little holes and negative spaces in the decal. Same goes for the body of the custom! As you can see here I have a drag bus waiting for my decals.
I mocked up Templates for my decals and kind traced them out for the bus. Then with a little Low Tack masking tape I covered the area in which I plan to put the decals on. I hit it with the color or Shade of choice and as you can see when I apply the decals with any luck I shouldn't’t have any White showing and because clear decals wont show through dark colors the edges on the decal should be somewhat masked by the paint! But wait its not that easy and very rarely has this ever happened to me! Masking is not an exact science and you will on occasion have bleeding. Meaning if you shoot the body with color you will find that some times it will bleed under the masking tape and kind of ruin the area you were planning to put the decal. But don’t fret as a little, very little amount of paint thinner on a Q-tip may fix it…or ruin it even more. This is where time plays a factor. Over time this will get easier to do and small things like this are less likely to happen….so don’t be discouraged if all these problems arise all the time all you are good enough to get to this point don’t let something near the end to throw you off course!! 1 thing that I noticed that does help is if you shoot the custom with the masking on with white paint it helps to seal the masking to the body and in a sense does what you don’t want the color to do….Bleed past the masked edge.
OK! So now we have a custom masked off ready for decals. With all the negative space filled in with the body color of choice and with any luck no bleeding! Begin with sizing your decal before you apply.. My advice for sizing decals is to try and edge and cut the decal to bodylines and the contours of the body. So when you are done cutting it will fit like a puzzle piece inside the bodylines of the custom. When you hit the custom with clear later Clear has a great way of hiding decal edges and if you line them up with a door outline the decal will look to appear seamless. If you are doing the top of DD or something cut the decal to the full size of the top of the DD as you won’t have any seams and the decal will disappear nicely into the paint!! Just keep in mind that when cutting up a decal to fix a big area don’t try and cut it to big past what you need if for as sometimes, even if you are trying to match it up to bodylines air pockets can form and if it dries you are going to be sorry!! The Bigger the surface that is being decal the more careful you have to be to get all the excess water and air from under the decal! just take a Q-tip of a soft cloth and gently rub the decal down from end to end making sure the water and or the air comes out ok so you have sized it and are ready to go…I recommend decal solution to soften up the decal and make it easier to use. You can get this stuff over at Kustomrides.com. It also helps to make the decal a little more flexible thus helping to go around corners bodylines, gaps and decal wraps!! Make sure your decal has had enough time to loosen of the backing itself and try not to force it. Doing that will just cause it to stretch and make the images of the decal to warp…or you could just break it…so let it come off the backing on its own!!
Again I am tried as hell!!...more to come!!
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