Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Decals, water release or vinyl?

Looking to add a couple decals to a couple pumps. Is one type easier to use or better looking than the other? What about removing them if needed later on?

Thanks

i personnally like the look of water tranfer better & i would think that they are much easier to remove at a later date.........

Wes - I have used the vinyl logos applied over magnetic material. The sheet of magnetic material is cheap and is sold at my local sign shop by the foot. There is nothing easier than removing a magnet if you wish to change pump theme or change the placement of the decal.

Kurt

Water release decals to me look the best because the are about 1/2 as thin as vinyl, and if you plain on doing base/clear paint, no question water release is the best.

As to the point of future removal, I have had more problems with WATER than with vinyl. With vinyl, you get an edge up and most times you can peel it off in on piece. Sometimes waters will just crumble off, but other times you have to scrape and scrape for hours to get one completely off.

Both vinyl & water slide can be applied to magnetic material [gives the look of a sign when heads of screws are hot glued on].

Hey Seth,

Go to your local auto body supplier and buy and eraser pad, you can remove vinyl as well as the water transfers with out damaging the paint. They are inexpensive.

Ryan

Dito to what Seth said about the water release decals looking much nicer than vinyl. We like to use the water decals on the restorations we do for our customers. Also like to put on at least 4 or 5 coats of clear wet and dry sanding after each coat untill the decal looks like it is floating in the clear and you can not see or feel the "lip" when the edge of the decal would be.

Ironic how I just spent a few hours removing water glass decals from an oil rack that I just built. I was testing the adhesion of some of Michael Slama's water glass stickers to determine if they would adhere to a powder coated surface. Let me tell you that those stickers weren't going anywhere and were very challenging to remove (quite a mess with them chipping into small particles).

Anyhow, your question is probably a matter of personal preference, but in my opinion vinyl stickers have a cheap look about them and do not age very well. When vinyl decals get stained or dirty they look just awful, whereas water glide stickers seem to antique with age and look more authentic.

Here is what I use to do to make it easy to change a pump from one brand to another. Take the decal, either type, and place on that thin magnetic sign material they use to post ads on cars. The magnetic material is about 1/16 inch thick. Now you can put the decal on the pump, move it, replace it or whatever without messing up a nice paint job