Decal question

[Noskills]

This year we printed decals on clear adhesive paper. Worked well. Yet as the paint color was dark the decal shows up poorly. I choose to ignore this, clear coated and waxed the car. Now I am having second thoughts. The decals are all from my son and I want this car to, in the words of some wise DTer, look like a kid car and race like a dad car. I am thinking of cleaning the surface of the decal of the wax and scotchbriting the clear coat. Then reprinting the stickers on white adhesive and laying them right on top of the old ones. I realize the decals will not have the same nice finish but I am OK with that. Anyone ever tried this or see any flaws in my plan?

Seth

[Speedster]

I'd take a piece of your clear adhesive paper and see if it doesn't stick to the car just the way it is. In any event, I wouldn't use a chemical to try to remove the wax from an air dry clear.

[Noskills]

Speedster,
Thanks for the advice. I need to clean the car of graphite for a photo soon. I typically do this with some WD-40 and a q-tip so I will do this over the decals, wipe off with a clear cloth then apply new decals.

Seth

[sarge]

If you use the testors decal paper you can clear coat that stuff.
Just print the same decal on the white paper and lay it over the top.
It may not look quite as good but its not bad.
You will have to clear the hole sheet and then cut it out or
it will not work very well.

[rkibby]

If you like to use decals for your designs, for your next cars you might want to think about taking your design to someone in your town that can cut vinyl decals.

The boy and I did this with our cars and it cost a couple dollars since we used very little vinyl and it was scrap the guy had laying around. Less hassle and was quality vinyl.

My Sons 2011 car



My Open Class 2011 car

[Ickabod]

If you like to use decals for your designs, for your next cars you might want to think about taking your design to someone in your town that can cut vinyl

Vinyl + wife's cricut = my custom decals. Looking forward to seeing what kind of designs we can come up with this year.

[DerbyDash]

The cricut seems like a great idea...have to try that with my wife's one too! Thanks for the input!

[Ickabod]

The cricut seems like a great idea...have to try that with my wife's one too! Thanks for the input!

Yeah, she got it this summer and I thought that I could come up with some designs to use. There is software called "Sure cuts a Lot" that will allow you to make any design you want on your computer and send it to the cricut. The software isn't available any more except on ebay since it allowed you to make any designs you want without having to buy any cartridged. The company was sued by cricut and was forced to stop selling the software, but you can still find a copy floating around on the net.

[davet]

Cool cars. I'm very new to this car stuff but this year we cleared our car then applied the decals. I didn't have my boy re-clear coat it and should have. Just while handling the car and lubing the wheels the edges of the decals began to lift slightly. Once that happened the graphite stuck to the exposed turned up portion of the decals and made our nice white paint and decal job look terrible.
It might be too late as I just saw your thread but just because you clear over the decals doesn't mean a kid didn't put them on. I didn't have him clear over the decals because it was just 2 days to the race and we still hadn't put wheels on yet.

[Curse You Red Baron!]

Every kid shows a different attention to detail. My oldest would slap stuff on and not care. My youngest pays close attention - his work is in the photo section under my recent post. We clear coated the stickers and it looked fantastic. When he looks back on this, the car will live up to his memories of it, which is something more than I can say for my last build back in the 70's!