Painting the Town: part 6

Finally, the coats of black paint are done. Only one coat of clear needed to be applied before the decals but I went back and sprayed the spots that weren't shiny. Now I'm finally ready for the water slide decals. Boy, am I nervous! They give you an "extra" to practice with but where would you actually practice? I decided I would practice right on the back where the motor is going to touch. Who would ever see that? I would show you a photo of the clear coat but there's just nothing to see.

Just came back from the practice run and changed my mind. I tried it out on the Pfaff 130 I hope to paint next, going through the steps and putting the black decal on the black sewing machine. Of course, it doesn't look like much but I got to see how long it takes for the decal to get thoroughly wet and how I would slide it into place. So that's why they call them water-slide decals: they slide off the paper backing only using water. And to think I was hoping this had something to do with a water park...

I am a bit concerned about all those decals and where they might go. My photo of the original isn't that good so I look to see if I have another 66 with the same filigree trims and I find a 99 so I get it all set up with the decals cut apart and ready for the water treatment:

Set-up: 99 in the back and the 66 in the front

I started on the back of the arm and it went okay but I was not impressed. The decal also went over a screw hole so I will have to go back and cut that hole out (after it dries). Next I did the decal on the back of the bed:

Placement on the back of the bed

From there I went to the front of the bed but had problems with making all 3 of the pieces meet up. My sample on the 99 didn't help since so much was worn away but it also has a shorter bed. I tried to make the best of the situation:

Where the extension piece meets up

I also notice I have placed them too far from the edge so now I have to make the front decals just as far away to make them match. Next is the part on the upright arm and it was easy; I'm getting more confident! Below is how it looks so far:

Almost done: need 2 more

Down to the final name on the front and the center of the bed. I'm starting to do a happy dance. Here she is below, finally done with the decals:

She's done!

Another angle when done

So I learned quite a bit in using this as the test project. Decals are not as fragile as they make it sound. Yes, you can certainly wreck them and there are no extras on the sheet, but you would have to be pretty sloppy for that to happen. One of the water bottles was to have a touch of detergent so the decal would slide better and I found that to be the only one I used. You need a large enough water-for-soaking container for the long length of the nameplate pieces so plan accordingly. It also takes longer for them to get really soaked than the 30-45 seconds but maybe I just can't judge time when I'm so anxious to see the results. When all is dry they seem to just melt into the paint and I can hardly see an edge on most of them. Yea! 

Next up: final coats of the clear. Stay tuned as our Mavin adds the final coats and thinks about reassembly of the Singer 66.