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Anyone had any experience of applying these?
I have a big run of them to do for a Pullman Railway carriage restoration job- They are brand new re-pros, and have the image in reverse onto clear cell- then onto stiff white paper (on the front).
I hav'nt done any for a while, and not sure i ever knew much of what i was doing last time
Last ones I did where 80 years old thou...and had been rolled up for the last 50 in a dusty drawer.
posted
I made some, using duplex paper, back in 1988 for a job I was doing. IN 1998 I was given some antique originals of a wheatsheaf, and had to apply four of them to a job (a brewery waggon).
In the first case, I traced the outline fo the scene & text onto the transfer paper, then painted clear varnish or size on that & let it dry. Then I set about painting the whole thing over that, allowing about 1/16" margin inside the clear, or maybe 2mm- all in enamel. When dry, I put clear UV stable varnish over all the enamel plus the narrow margin on the base.
Next, I wet it withn a cloth & took another bit of transfer paper, and 'stuck' it down on top. When dry & wet & released the bottom paper, and gently wiped all glue off, using a wet rag.
When I needed to use the transfers, I put goldsize on what was now the upper face, but which was really the underside of the image; then when tacky- just en educated guess at the time-placed them sticky-side down on the enamel substrate, and while still squishy, I wet the carrier paper, slid it off, wiped the glue off & squeegeed the whole thing smooth with my fingers & a damp rag.
Rightly or wrongly, that process worked- they have been in the weather a lot over the past 20 years, and are still fine- no crazing or peeling.
I had to figure it out as I went along- an old bloke told me some of it, but he had passed away before I had the rest of the questions!
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With the second job- they were original screen-printed transfers, already upside-down. I brushed goldsize onto the upperface, stuck them one-at-a-time where I wanted them, and wet the backing apper & slid it off, and then washed the remaining glue off & squeegeed it all down with my fingers again.
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I suppose I could possibly have used the glue on them to hold them in place, but I didn't.
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Actually, I've just remembered a third time- in the early 1990s a fellow had a vintage mororbike of some kind, and wanted tranfers stuck on the tank, and lacquered over till there was no 'lip' or edge to the transfer.
Those transfers were right-way-up, and I just wet them & slid them off the backing paper onto the tank, wiped glue off from the edges squeegeeing it down. I used the glue to hold it in place. After a day in the sun to thoroughly dry (aussie sun, that is!), I gently sprayed clear acrylic lacquer over it, building up a coat. When dry, & wet & dry sanded it with 600, then 800 then 1000 grit- I had enough lacquer on,so that sanding allowed me to level the top without hitting the transfer, and also created a smooth transition from transfer cover to background.
A couple more coats of lacquer after that finished it.
Then I had to stripe the tank, and me being me, I used enamel for that! It all held up fine. About 8 years alter I did another job for the same customer- an Indian bike for the 1940s- putting that sticker or transfer on was no fun, as it is flat, and the tank is curved, and the wrinkles have to be got rid of. Possible, if careful, but hard work at the time, as you can't stretch the transfer or it'll tear- but you can sort of compress it, just make sure you avoid wrinkles which become creases.
Some people call the transfers 'decals'- I don't- decals, or 'dekkles' as some seem to pronounce it, comed from a french word decalcomanie, I think, but these days it has become a very ambiguous term, with the variety of plotted letters, digital prints, & screen-printed vinyl images all kind-of going for the same name in different customers' minds.
I just call them transfers, or water-slide transfers. ..................
Your last ones, 80 years old, rolled up for 50 years, sound like the wheat sheaf ones I used- but I spent a few months with them cut out, pressed flat, to equalise stresses, before using them.
You may have to use scissors to cut around the images you're using, allowing a matchstick-wide margin- it all depends on whether the clear they used first, on the duplex paper covered the whole paper, or just the image area.
If in doubt, cut a small 1" square bit off a spare corner, dollop a few smears of enamel on it, let dry, then wet the paper & see what you can slide off- or look for the printed crosshatch registration marks- they're usually somewhere nearby- cut one off, and experiment with transferring that to a scrap of metal.
Or fly me over & I'll help you do it! Please post some photos of the carriage, and the transfers, before you start!
Why not hand-letter the stuff on it?
Actually, Letterheadfonts have a newish font called smalts, which is just like the font used on the baseboard at the bottom of many railway carriages & omnibuses (omnibii?)- a kind of wide, octagonal lettering with a little bit of style or curve to it.
Hope that helps!
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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Thanks Ian- Yep they sound the same- This set up is quite unique 4 1920's Pullman sleeper carriages converted into luxurious guest accomodation ,at an ex-railway station setting- ( complete with buildings, ticket office-tea rooms- railway platform with the carriages set either side of the platform with rails that go nowhere anymore.
I'm just doing 1 of the four, Most of the decoration is hand painted,- alot of it onto close matchboarding down the sides- but the transfers- ( for the coats of arms and some of the patternwork) are still available- brand new manufactured to order- and dirt cheap too) My customers just being economical I guess- but to be fair to him- there's enough cost involved in restoring one of these to start with!
I'm guessing the "tack" of the size needs to be a bit tackier than for regular gilding ( like for copper or Aluminium leaf?)
It makes sense now to size the transfer- and not the surface- I wonder if slightly wetting the surface untill your 100% about the positioning would help- then apply apply like vinyl??- and squegee out the remaining drops of water??
The last ones I did were size transfer (like these)- and I sized an area same shape as the decal straight onto the surface- and applied like gold- but the registration was awkward
I'll post some pics if I get chance- thou the job can'nt happen fast enough for the owner
[ April 05, 2008, 04:21 AM: Message edited by: Wayne Osborne ]
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HI Wayne, I guess I never thought of it as being similar to gilding, but I kept the size a bit wetter to help slide any bubbles out from under the transfer- but still pretty dry. I can't remember too much about it, but each time I did it, it worked fine.
I wouldn't size the carriage surface though, just the transfer- that'll give it properties kind of like sticky vinyl, I suppose.
Offhand, I wouldn't use water or any application fluid. You could hinge the backing paper of the transfer though- i.e. register it dry, face down in place, and put masking tape along one edge, then hinge it back, size the appropriate place, and fold or hinge it back into place, perfectly registered!
I think I have an old book which might mention applying the stuff. If I can find anything new I'll post it here, anyhow.
In the meantime, I'm sure someone else reading here must have done some of this before- time for some other input!
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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Thanks to everyone here and elsewhere who replied or messaged me about this.
An Update:
Did all these yesterday!- I used one shot quick size, and they all went very well- I cut them down a bit- and followed Ian's Hinge method- sized the back and taped them down till they dried-then flipped them up and applied- soaked the paper back ( which I think was held with some sort of Gum Arabic type size)- and off it comes perfectly everytime.
They are outdoors 100%- so I'll varnish over next to protect them from weather and the cleaners.
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