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>
>The bureaus have several colors of cut vinyls and gold and silver and
>white inks, but I haven't found a bureau that can do foil decals.
>
You might investigate for a local supplier of "rubdowns", known by various
brandnames one of which was "cromatech". This used to be very common as a g
raphic design vended service, but is becoming more rare with each passing d
ay. The process sort of resembles a variation of screenprinting, but there
are no screens. A film negative(s) is generated from your camera-ready art
or computer file. This is used to expose a photo-sensitive material using a
strong arc-light. That exposed material is then coated with lacquer ink u
sing a metal rod to "sqeegee" the ink(s), and the material accepts /repels
the ink corresponding to the light-exposed areas. Once it's dried you are l
eft with a rub-on type transfer, and they can be a simple one-color OR mult
icolored, complex, and have opaque white and/or metallic inks. These are es
sentially lacquer, and if topcoated with a compatible clear, with last as l
ong as lacquer will. A coworker of mine did an independant test using his c
ar and found that one of these, NOT top coated, survived over 2 years of co
nstant exposre to the elements with no degradation or fading...and he didn'
t have to wash his car for 2 years to boot. We were all very impressed, his
wife hated that experiment.
There used to be a dozen firms here offering these 20 years ago, now there
is only one survivor in my town...but one is more than none.
Alan Goldsworthy
SF, CA, USA