Cut and pasted at the request of Bob Freitas
<< Raleigh TI decals!
Posted by: "Nick" nick@lloydcycles.co.uk
Thu Jan 7, 2010 1:51 pm (PST)
Ooh 'eck guys. This all gets a bit hectic suddenly! Decals, decals...... ....transfers??? Decalomania???? Here's the deal - I think.... I only ever work from original transfers, these were usually "varnish"fix. There's a reference here somewhere recently about "clay". Neverheard that one before. Varnish fix transfers (decals) were printed on"duplex" paper which one seperated before aplication. They made a veryflat application and almost bonded to the paint so thatlacquering/varnishingclearcoating was hardly required. These days you basically can choose from dryfix (not good unless VERYcarefully stored [Ooh, like I do!]), waterslide (very good but not ifit's a big "decal"), or "vinyl" (which covers a multitude of sins, seethe * below!) So. back to origination. One either starts with original decals, flat,in your hand, un-applied (which is about 95% of what I do - read thatagain, 95% of what I do is not "guessed" at, it is done from originals)OR get the bike in your hand and do accurate photographs and tracingsso that final decals are 99% correct. There is NO other way to do thiswork properly. One can "guess" at it from photos, but guessing justabout sums it up! Having "done" origination (very time consuming if you do it properly,and as a result very "expensive") you get to production. Forget varnish- no papers made for over ten years and very difficult to apply. Alsoprinting costs are as "bad" as waterslide, even if you can find thepapers. Waterslide and dryfix, both fine and give great results.Waterslide aren't good for big area of decal, dryfix fine for largerareas. BUT both methods of application are VERY expensive to produce.Expensive artwork followed by expensive printing. Normal printing runsare 200-off or more. Sure you can go for 10-off, but the expensivestuff is all BEFORE the volume stuff. Raleigh et al made loads of bikes and 0000's of "decals" as a result.We're looking at very low volumes here (compared to original output).Although H Lloyd cycles have invested huge sums in waterslideproduction for certain manufacturers/models there are certain items where vinyl is the only/best solution (see * below). We offer a pretty good selection of Raleigh decals in a mix ofwaterslide, dryfix and vinyl, depending on model required. You can findthe list of items available at http://www.hlloydcycles.com. You will also find other makers listed there I hope this helps a little in the world of decals, - there's lots to explore! N *VINYL decals Another minefield! There's garbage, reasonable, wonderful,and all inbetween. You can buy "vinyl" at gbp 0.70 per metre, or gbp 6 per metre.That's why it can get a bad name. Lloyd's use only the expensive stuff.Ours is very UV and temperature stable. I've no idea what Greg inAustralia uses. There are very few digital printers that will print andthen cut to spec onto vinyl in the colours required by you good cyclingfolk. Personally we have done it for 30 years, so we know what we aredoing. As we are talking Raleigh special products et al I make thefollowing general comments:- The golds need to be gold, not muddy brown. Without the correct technology you cannot do this. The yellows required for the "TI Raleigh" set and so on are "out ofgammut" for cmyk printers. As a result Lloyds supply as a seperate setof letters for the white bits and the yellow bits. These are very easyto assemble on the frame and give the best result. As far as I areaware the seat tube panel was a painted panel with lining detail aboveand below, although the later and (maybe) cheaper frames had a big wraparound panel, usual with a tell-tale down the back of the seat tubewhere the panel doesnt quite match. The correct lining for above andbelow painted panels is not listed on my offering, but is available byrequest. (Ok, Ok, it's about time I formally listed it)
I'm sure there will be loads of much better-informed folk than me outthere that will pick a bucket of holes in everything I've just written.I rely on 30 years of experience in decal drafting and manufacture so Iwill enter into no further correspondence unless replies erk me! On the subject of erk-ing I can supply ALL 531's, 753's etc right fromthe 1935 start date. You either rely on MY timeline or give me a photoor EXACT description of what you want to match so that I can supplyfrom my part-number base
I've now run out of fingers to type with.... Nick Tithcot >>
Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina USA
http://www.classicrendezvous.com