Bright lettering on dark background success stories? I need some advice...

[smarch]

Once again, very new to all this and I'm trying to get a bright yellow onto a box painted in a sparkly-black like paint.  I bought some "clear" sticker print sheets from Office Max yesterday only to find out that they were more opaque than clear and that the color didn't show up at all on the box.  Has anyone had any luck doing this with decal sheets or other methods?  I'm a poor student and I'm trying to do this on the cheap as much as possible    Thanks for any advice.

[John Lyons]

Search for "white lettering", "Rub on lettering", etc. There are a few threads about this. Nothing for yellow but white...

John

[smarch]

I saw those, was hoping someone else had some success getting bright colored decals over dark paint.  Thanks for the suggestion, I may just have to change my artistic dream if this one isn't possible.

[John Lyons]

The problem is that you need an opaque ink or transfers to show up over a dark surface underneath.
The only way to do this is: rub on letters, silkscreening them on, stencil and spraypaint, embossing powder or paint pen/brush.

John

[Jake Lessen]

This doesn't involve decals, but the best way to do yellow letters on a black background is to paint your whole box yellow, and then mask the letters somehow(tape or stickers) and then paint black over that.  Take the tape off, and you have (hopefully) an nice professional looking paint job.  Make sure the tape is on good, otherwise the paint might run underneath.

[smarch]

Thanks for the replies, I've already got the box painted with two coats of primer and three of black paint so I think I'm just gonna have to get creative.  You learn from your mistakes, right?

[R.G.]

Buy some toner-transfer decal paper. Print your lettering on it in black toner. Go to an office supply place. Buy some metal foil transfer sheets. These are intended to be ironed onto  toner-printed pages and stick the metal foil to the toner. It comes in metallic silver, red, blue, gold, yada, yada. Iron it on. Spray on lacqer. Cut and paste new metallic lettering.

[mattpocket]

RG. Can you give us a link to that metal foil stuff... Sounds cool!

I've had a google-session and cant find anything...

Matt

[smarch]

Whoa, that does sound cool.  I could definitely go with gold as opposed to yellow.  I second the link request, if available.  Thanks again for the help.

[R.G.]

The stuff I used was IBFoil. But I put "toner foil" into google and got a zillion hits for many brand names. Hit google for something near to you.

[caress]

metallic paint pens/markers work well if you don't mind you handwriting...

[mattpocket]

the embossing powder method looks cool too...

print onto your decal paper in black (must be inkjet) while the ink is wet sprinkle with embossing powder (available in many colours) and it will stick to the wet ink, tip off the excess powder and heat with the special heat gun... the powder melts and sticks to the ink, ta da! a coloured decal... you can get loads of metallic colours and colours with glitters in too!

Matt

[smarch]

Does the embossing powder leave you with a textured decal?  Or does it end up flat?  I guess textured wouldn't really be a big deal, but I have a feeling it would hurt the durability of the end paint job.  That seems like it could be the way to go. 

[mattpocket]

You put the decal on, and then clearcoat the enclosure... if you put enuogh coats on and sand and polish enough you could make it look flat, but the decal itself is slightly raised, but its not much... and you can get different powders that are finer for a more detailed effect which would probably be less "embossed"....

http://www.supercaldecals.com/super3A.html

they dont look very textured do they?

Matt

[zeta55]

I tried waterslide decal with gold/yellow text on a black painted pedal. Well, it did not come out as intended, it looks more like green



/Krister

[mattpocket]

how did you make this decal? Embossing powder?

Matt

[MR COFFEE]

Umm,

Y'know, you can get rubber stamps made cheap at Office Max (here in the States), and there is a special rubber stamp "ink" made for adhering embossing powder (to a substrate). This can be done on painted FX boxes if you don't get too impatient or aggressive with the heat. Not as perfect as screen printing by any means, but acceptable to some of us. Imperfect has it's own appealing qualities. FWIW.

And that embossing powder stuff comes in a variety of colors and especially groovy metallic colors.

Yeah, I'm wtf over 30.

Yeah, you've got to coat it with a lot of clear coat to make it durable enough for rock and roll.

Hey, what doesn't get worn away by R n' R ?

[zeta55]

how did you make this decal? Embossing powder?

Matt

No it's a common waterslide decal, printed with a colour laser printer.

/Krister

[smarch]

zeta,

That does look pretty cool.  I wonder if the quality of decal differs with laser vs. inkjet?  I made the mistake of trying print-off "stickers" as opposed to water-slide decals so that's the next test for me to do.  How wet does the ink have to be to use the embossing powder anyway?  My printer is pretty slow and the ink is usually decently dry by the time it comes out.  Hmm...

-smarch

[MR COFFEE]

Smarch,

How wet does the ink have to be to use the embossing powder anyway?

You can't use plain inkjet or laserjet "ink" with embossing powder. It's a special sticky liquid that you use with a stamp pad or stencil and  dauber. Then you pour the embossing powder on it and shake off the excess. Then you heat it after it dries and it solidifies into letters the color of the embossing powder that are slightly raised above the surface, hence the name "embossing." It's original use is for making personalized greeting cards and other arts and crafts type stuff, but it can be bent into other uses.