A quickie - flat clear coat spray over self adhesive decals?

[Blast it Tom!]

Did a quick search but came up empty. These self-adhesive stickers that pass for decals these days- has anybody sprayed flat clear coat over them? I figure you'd have to burnish them down pretty well, I just don't know how they'd take the flat spray (Testor's in this case). With water slides my technique was to apply them to a gloss finish and hen use whatever (gloss, satin, flat) overall for the final coat but I've never tried it with the stickers. Much thanks for any help...

 

[neil_w]

I don't see why it wouldn't work just fine. Do you have any leftover sticker paper you can test it out with?

 

[Blast it Tom!]

Yes, I did think of trying that. I don't have much and I'd have to put the stickers on and didn't want to do that if there would be a problem, but yeah - Great minds think alike! BTW, loved your "Shear Insanity"!

 

[jqavins]

You could just cut off a piece of the sheet that will be left over, and test it on some scarp body tube.

 

[ep29030]

I've applied the thick decals, put 3 coats of gloss clear over them, did a wet sand with 1000 grit to smooth, then did one final coat. Turned out well.

 

[Blast it Tom!]

Well, just to let you all know, it worked fairly well. If I had remembered, I probably would have gloss coated the finish first, as is done for water slide decals. But it's passable.

Considering it was a snap-together, molded in yellow mostly, it came out pretty well. I've been picking at it for about a year... the matching Red Baron is still far from done. I think if I would have gloss coated it prior to decals (stickers), I would have have better adhesion and hiding. Oh, yes, I probably could have copied them and printed them on decal paper, but that seemed like a lot more effort than I could justify.

Thanks all!

 

[OC-Patrick]

I imagine it would not be much different than applying the recommended coat over Stickershock vinyl. I do it over almost all my Stickershock stuff. For self-adhesive stickers, make sure the edges stay.

 

[BABAR]

Speaking from a very unpleasant experience, make sure the last paint coat is COMPLETELY cured before you apply clear coat. I had an Estes SR-71 with a decent (for me) paint job, put the decals on, then clear coated. Complete orange peel, ruined not just pain but ALL those decals (Whimper whimper)

 

[Pappy]

i dislike self-stick. rarely to they fully live up to the 'stick' part. i had an outlander sitting sealed in a box for a good while, maybe 10 years, and that kit uses self-stick. age degraded the tack so the edges kept pulling up on the curved surfaces (LOTS of curved surfaces on this one). ended up using ca to 'seal' the deal *rimshot...

 

[cwbullet]

Did a quick search but came up empty. These self-adhesive stickers that pass for decals these days- has anybody sprayed flat clear coat over them? I figure you'd have to burnish them down pretty well, I just don't know how they'd take the flat spray (Testor's in this case). With water slides my technique was to apply them to a gloss finish and hen use whatever (gloss, satin, flat) overall for the final coat but I've never tried it with the stickers. Much thanks for any help...

I do it all of the time.

 

[Banzai88]

I do it all of the time.

It's done all the time in Gunpla circles, too, and those are some of the pickiest plastic model sub-groups ever!

As always, test on scrap first!

 

[mh9162013]

Speaking from a very unpleasant experience, make sure the last paint coat is COMPLETELY cured before you apply clear coat. I had an Estes SR-71 with a decent (for me) paint job, put the decals on, then clear coated. Complete orange peel, ruined not just pain but ALL those decals (Whimper whimper)

From what I've read online, that can sometimes take months.

When I do a project with clear coat, I actually create a "test" object that has the same paints and decals. So before I lay down that final clear coat, I'll spray the test item first and see what happens.

 

[cwbullet]

It's done all the time in Gunpla circles, too, and those are some of the pickiest plastic model sub-groups ever!

As always, test on scrap first!

The good news with rockets is the distance to the photographer. My birds only have to look good from 300-500 feel.