Creating a headstock decal

Hi all, I would like to make a custom headstock decal for my current and future builds, but is there any way to do it at an extremely low cost?

Water slide decal paper from the hobby store and a laser printer.

I do my logos for pennies a piece.

Sweet! Thanks. A penny a piece is pretty darn good.

Sweet! Thanks. A penny a piece is pretty darn good.

I said pennies.... like may 7 or 8... :wink:

I said pennies.... like may 7 or 8... :wink:

But keep in mind those are Canadian pennies!

Cheers,
Geoff

+1. At my local model train shop, you can get four pages of waterslide paper for $7. If you stretch it, you can do a lot of decals with those 4 pages!

http://www.agileguitarforum.com/uploader/files/1255055821-Mini_0002.jpg
http://www.agileguitarforum.com/uploader/files/1255055849-Mini_0003.jpg

Wow, I wish I had your free-hand skills! I have never been good at drawing, so it looks like Photoshop for me!

Water slide decal paper from the hobby store and a laser printer.

I do my logos for pennies a piece.

I have a tung-oil finish on my headstock. Will a water-slide decal stick OK? Any reason I couldn't just put one on with no covering finish, then remove and replace it if it got too nicked up later?

I read somewhere that the ink in the metallic silver pens will turn green with lacquer after a while. Any issues?

Does anyone have a font that's suitable for a 50s-Spaghetti-like design?

Does anyone have a font that's suitable for a 50s-Spaghetti-like design?

+1!

Do Inkjet decals hold up as well as laser printed? ...provided one uses quality photo rated inks?

Just found this . . but have'nt followed the links yet . .

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/bad-dog-cafe/157765-50s-fender-stratocaster-decal-font.html

+1. At my local model train shop, you can get four pages of waterslide paper for $7. If you stretch it, you can do a lot of decals with those 4 pages!

http://www.agileguitarforum.com/uploader/files/1255055821-Mini_0002.jpg
http://www.agileguitarforum.com/uploader/files/1255055849-Mini_0003.jpg

I used Testors inkjet paper for mine. I got a little rattle can with sealer with them when I bought the first batch about one and a half year ago. Now the can is empty and I have been informed that the Testors sealer rattle cans contain a certain substance that has is not allowed to be sold in Europe any more.

I don't know of any replacement... how do I seal them in the future, any ideas?

I use acrylic spray cans from car accessories shops without any problems

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j15/ricplayer/New%20Jazz%20bass/DSC00219.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j15/ricplayer/Jazz%20bass%20project/SP_A0048.jpg

I don't know of any replacement... how do I seal them in the future, any ideas?



http://www.decalpaper.com/product-p/10c.htm

How To Apply Inkjet waterslide decal paper

•Step #3: Spray your printed sheet evenly with Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear High Gloss spray until the sheet has a shine (2-3 coats). Allow 30 to 60 minutes to dry and set. (This product is available at any craft or hardware store such as Loews, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Walmart, etc. Any acrylic clear coat spray will work.)


I bought a 10 pack of paper & a can of this spray, used Microsoft Excel to put my font into cells (36 to a page) & I'm pretty much set for life in the decal department.

Thanks for the input.
I guess you can't use the water based Acrylic paint from the DIY stores which would dissolve when trying to apply the decal.

The page about laser decal paper at DecalPaper.com says:

"*** Important: Laser Paper must be used as soon as the printer is turned on to prevent the paper from melting onto the fuser.***"

This sounds like it's got the potential to screw up the printer. Are they just covering their butts with this warning or have people melted the paper onto the fuser?

Does anyone have a font that's suitable for a 50s-Spaghetti-like design?

Brush Script is fairly close. Here's some sample text:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Brush_Script_sample.svg/800px-Brush_Script_sample.svg.png

Brush Script is fairly close. Here's some sample text:

Thanks . . but my final target is a 50s logo with "Ferkel Teleblaster" . . the "k" might be not that easy to do . .

Wait! Tokai has got a "k" . .

http://www0.fh-trier.de/~niesen/tdpri/tokai%20headstock.jpg

I bought a pack of 50 sheets of laser water slide decal paper from DecalPaper.com (the link here is for 25 sheets) (http://www.decalpaper.com/product-p/l825c.htm). I used a free vector graphics tool called InkScape on my PC. I found a font I like then created outlines and changed them to my preference. I then took a USB fob with the vector graphics files on them (multiple decals laid out on a sheet) to a local mailbox place that did color copies. They have a nice color laser printer and it cost me about $0.75 per page = great quality. The most expensive part of the endeavor was getting the actual decal paper.

I tried the Testors inkjet paper and just didn't like it. With the Laser water slide paper I easily put the decal on the headstock after a few coats of lacquer. Waited for it to dry then misted some lacquer on and let that dry. I did find that you have to sand the decal and area around it very carefully to give the appearance of no outline of the decal...I would practice on a piece of scrap first - better to waste a small decal and some lacquer to get it right.

Do Inkjet decals hold up as well as laser printed? ...provided one uses quality photo rated inks?

I believe that they do, but the process for attaching them is slightly different. A laser printed decal is already waterproof, but an inkjet decal will need 'fixing' with lacquer of some sort to stop the ink bleeding out when you put it in the water.

I just picked up some INK jet waterslide paper to do my headstock.
The instructions state to use Krylon. Any reason I couldn't use Deft instead?

Thanks for the input.
I guess you can't use the water based Acrylic paint from the DIY stores which would dissolve when trying to apply the decal.

Hi Tuur I used the acrylic laquer from the "Action shop". It worked great!

anything that seals the ink onto the paper so the water can't get to it will work.

for mine, i scanned the Fender logo in Photoshop and traced it with a vector program (FreeHand, but Illustrator or any other drawing software will work) ... then i manipulated the paths to form different letters. i used the Testors inkjet kit on two guitars and it worked well. on this one, i applied the decal before the neck was completely finished and hit it with a skim coat of wipe-on poly. no problems after almost two years.

I've done a couple of these with the Testors inkjet kit and deft with good results. What would you guys charge if you were doing this for someone else? A guy saw one I did where I incorporated my initials into the shape of a strat and now he would like me to design one with his initials and apply it as well. I told him $75 for all my time and materials. He said he was thinking more like $25. I'll likely tell him thanks but no thanks, but do you all think my quote was too high? Here is one of mine
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/69/669/3/18/18/2466318180102935638obVbLb_th.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2466318180102935638obVbLb)

I did three up till now,all Testors inkjet paper with the Testore fixator rattle can (now forbidden in Europe). I got mixed results.

First one fell off eventually because I didn't apply a clear coat on the headstock after adding the decal. The black didn't turn out to be entirely black; there was a pink hue on the letter's edges:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2184/2083870649_3df0cb2bc6.jpg

Second one is under a few coats of clear, but also got the pink hue:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3382/3622669321_e8d81fa052.jpg?v=1244933964

As is the Teiscocaster decal:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2312/2518522280_418631843a.jpg?v=0

The page about laser decal paper at DecalPaper.com says:

"*** Important: Laser Paper must be used as soon as the printer is turned on to prevent the paper from melting onto the fuser.***"

This sounds like it's got the potential to screw up the printer. Are they just covering their butts with this warning or have people melted the paper onto the fuser?

As the guy who used to have fix the printers, do NOT put anything into a laser printer that isn't rated as safe for such. Fuser temps can be as high as 200C. If it doesn't say its safe for laser printers there is a good chance that it will screw up the fuser. Fusers are replaceable but rarely if ever repairable (at least I've never seen one I could get into).

Had an admin asst put regular labels into one. It took forever to get them unstuck from the fuser. The scariest part was when I asked what she was doing with the screwdriver in hand, she replied, "I'm fixing it!".

:roll:

http://www.1001freefonts.com/Rebecca.php
This one has some distinct similaritites to the fender font, note the e's

http://www.1001freefonts.com/Rebecca.php
This one has some distinct similaritites to the fender font, note the e's

If you want to do it easy and just have an approximation of the Fender font look, use fonts like Brush script.

What I heard is that the Fender logo wasn't a type set, so there is no font with that exact lettering around. The best chance you have of making it resemble the Fender logo, is to trace it and adapt to your taste in a vector imaging application, like Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw or the free Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/).

I went for Inkscape, downloaded a big image of a Fender headstock, and traced the 'F', 'n' and 'r'; then I reworked the F to a T, flipped the n and kept the r. I'm not very good at it so it is not exactly the same as the original, which I didn't want anyways. It takes some practicing to get used to the Inkscape interface but I found it totally worth it to take the extra steps!

I was just posting it incase anyone else was looking for similar ones, I think that I am going to go for something else. My initial thought was to copy the fender style, but I think I am going to go for something else. I think I have my brand, but I think I'll keep it to myself for now. :)

I finished my first headstock decal today (thanks to all the great info found on this forum) and thought I would share the results.

I took a jpeg of the Fender logo (found on Google images) and rearanged the letters a bit using MS Paintshop.
Modified the "F" to a "K", changed the first "N" into a "VI" and dropped in one last "N". Added a "caster" to my last name, and TADA!!
My guitar is now officially a "Kevin Waddlecaster":grin:

I printed it out (a few times, just in case) on some InkJet waterslide paper, and shot it with a coat of Deft. Luckily, it went smoothly on my first try.
Now I just need to shoot a few more coats of Deft over the face of my headstock and colosand it.

What do ya' think??

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v619/mypetelvis/100_1834.jpg

Pretty stinkin' cool by my standards! I will be buying the stuff for this soon, and I wondered, if I'm going to be spraying mcfadden vinyl sealer/washcoat and mcfadden lacquer on top of it what else will I need?

Thanks to all !!!

Some googling will get you a font that is made to be "the" Fender font. Can't remember where I found it posted, but it is out there.

(Try googling "Fender.ttf", it is the second one down).