Most people these days are printing decals on thin adhesive plastic film. The important thing being the UV stability of the film and the ink if they are to retain their appearance for a number of years. They do not have to be printed by a specialist decal manufacturer: I had some made up by a local sign company that produces all sorts of signage and printed products and the results were very good.
>From a quality perspective, these decals are generally considered superior to water slide or varnish fix decals, but they have the disadvantage of extra thickness. The thickness can be masked by clearcoat, but that has the disadvantage of giving a finish which doesn't look at all period. Dulling the finish on the clearcoat can make things look better. Perhaps the experienced refinishers on the list can advise how to get the most realistic vintage appearance using plastic film decals.
Hugh Thornton
Cheshire, England
From: Owen Wrigley <owen_wrigley@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: [CR] French bikes / Mercier Decals - Now Repro Decals To: "Classic Rendezvous" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>, hughwthornton@yahoo.co.uk, "Norris Lockley" <nlockley73@gmail.com> Date: Saturday, 22 January, 2011, 17:21
Dear Hugh and all,
Regarding decal reproduction.
I have just acquired a quite rare example of a Hilton Wrigley Connoisseur frame. Norris Lockley, who knew the man Hilton, himself, is providing me enormous assistance with this frame, but the matter of decal/transfers is in the air.
Norris has done a nice piece on Hilton at: http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/
This Hilton Wrigley frame comes with a head badge and seat tube crest transfer that even Norris has never seen before.
While not certain that the bike will require a refinish, I am doing my due diligence to prepare reproductions for the need. Obviously, there will be no big market for these, so it\u2019s probably going to be one-off, with a couple spares.
A cousin of mine has already risen to the challenge. He says his "church ladies" include a couple graphic artists who have declared that they can deliver this "professionally 'vectored' into a .eps format which can subsequently be used to create various size .pdf s" within a week. They're working from several photos, none of which is perfect, but should be adequate for a talented artist.
Presuming the artwork is up to snuff, what are the options to make the best possible bike-ready transfers?
I shall spare all the details of the bike for the moment. If others, beside Norris and myself, are interested, I'll happily respond and post a few photos.
Owen "of the Ilk" Wrigley Vienna, VA
--------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2011 16:34:02 +0000 (GMT) From: Hugh Thornton <hughwthornton(AT)yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Re: [CR] Now French bikes with Campagnolo / Mercier / Mercier Decals
What is interesting about Mercier is that whereas their pro-team used Campa= gnolo equipment, very few of their production bikes - if ebay sales are any= thing to go by - were fitted with Campagnolo.=A0 Nearly all the frames that= come onto the market now have Simplex dropouts, until about 1980 when they= switched mostly to Vitus dropouts which will accommodate both Simplex and = Campagnolo gears.
I think, as with Gitane, sponsored amateur teams typically used French equi= pment and it would seem like most of the paying customers did too, judging = by what people are selling now.
Poulidor joined Mercier in 1960, but in years of looking I have not seen a = Campagnolo-equipped Mercier from that era.
Some months ago there was some discussion about Mercier decals and I was ho= ping to get some made, but have been severely delayed for a multitude of reasons.=A0 A= nyway, if you check ebay you will see that cyclomondo has beaten me to it, = producing a set of decals after the style of those fitted to 1977 and later= Service Des Courses frames.=A0 I have yet to order a set, but expect to do= so shortly.
Hugh Thornton
Cheshire, England.