How to make waterslide decals

[strumsalot]

Thanks for the post Dread. I'll be using this in the near future for sure.

Great looking strat.

[duhvoodooman***]

Good set of instructions, Dread. I use waterslides on all my homemade pedals--they work great. Like anything, the quality of the results you get at the end is generally a direct reflection of the degree of planning upfront and the care taken in execution.

For anyone planning to use this method, be aware that light color graphics on decals over a dark background usually come out poor to worthless. Stick with dark graphics on a light-to-medium color surface and you'll probably be pleased with the outcome. The other thing you can do when decaling a dark surface is print to special white substrate decal paper, and then cut the decal out to the desired shape.

I've only used the inkjet type decal paper so far, and even with careful clearcoating before the water-soak, you can tend to get a little bleeding, but you usually have to look pretty closely to see it. I just ordered some laserjet decal paper for the first time, so I can try printing some decals on one of the color laser printers here where I work. Anxious to see how they look vs. the inkjet type.