Preparing the surface: If your plates or plastics are brand new, you will need to scuff the surface first. Without preparing the surface, you risk the stickers losing traction over time and you dramatically reduce the life of your decals. The best way prepare your surface is to rub the surface with thinners. This will remove the gloss from the plastics to provide a more adhesive surface without scratching them. Thinners also serves to clean off any residue from previous stickers.
Applying the decal:
When applying the decals, its important to remember to work from the inside of the decal, to the outside, this is to avoid creating bubbles in the middle.
By eye, line up any points of interest on the decal with your plate, any bolt holes or corners or curves that need to line up precisely. Firstly place the decal over the plate in an approximate location. Don’t stick down any edges or corners at this stage, just make sure you’ve placed it in the right spot. Its a good idea to start with your front plate or another less curved plastic, this will help you get a feel for you the decal with tack down under pressure.
If something doesn’t line up correctly, grab the decal by its edge and pull it back up quickly to try again. Avoid touching the sticking surface as much as possible to avoid affecting its application. Once satisfied with the positioning of your decal, press down a small patch in the centre of your decal using your squeegee. This is the area your will be working outwards from. If you dont have an application squeegee, you can use a credit card for a similar effect. If you do get some creases or large bubbles you can always peel that section back up rapidly and start again. When working outwards from the centre, imagine you are trying to get under the surface of the decal. Hold the edge you are working towards off the surface you are sticking the decal to.
This way you are tacking down a minimum of surface area with each stroke, reducing the chances of accidentally creating a bubble or crease. Hold up any edges that you aren’t yet ready to stick down to avoid getting creases. It’s best to apply a fairly high amount of pressure to really stick it down.
When tacking down a decal on a severely curved section, the outer edges may want to crease up as there is too much material to cover the surface. In this case you can gently heat the decal with a heat gun or hairdryer to shrink to decal slightly, this will remove the slack. When heated the decals become more sticky, flimsy and can be stretched a bit, but the more you stretch them, the thinner the decal gets in those areas, and of course becomes a little less durable. CAUTION: If you leave a heat-gun over an area for too long, eventually the decals will shrivel and even burn. Don’t heat the decal until you’re totally satisfied with it’s positioning otherwise it will make it much harder to peel the decal up and try again. Its best to keep the heat-gun at least 20cm away from the decal itself.
Curing the Glue & Removing Bubbles:
Once your decal is in place, its good practice to give the entire decal a light heating with the hairdryer or heat-gun, especially the edges. This will activate the glue and really make it bond with your plastics to ensure the life of the decal. Again remember not to overdo the heating to avoid potentially burning the decal.
So now you've got the decal on nice and straight and everything looks good, but just like that Star Wars Duraseal on your text-books you got a few bubbles here and there. These are real easy to deal with, grab a hobby knife with a pointed end, or a craft knife, and make a tiny hole on one edge of the bubble.
With your squeegee or your finger push from the other edge of the bubble towards your hole. This will push the air out of the bubble, through the hole and leave a tidy flat finish.
BEFORE
AFTER
Cleaning:
Don’t use harsh chemicals directly on the decal, things like meths of thinners will eat through the decal in seconds and ruin them. Also don’t rub them vigorously with a potscrub or other abrasive implements. When cleaning your bike off with a high pressure hose, avoid spraying directly on the edge of the decal for long periods, as the water can get in the edges and begin to separate the decal from the plastics. If your decals do begin to separate, scrape out as much dirt as you can and stick the edges back down with the heat gun.
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