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Jellycaster Logo


Jehle

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I've been playing around with BeAR's technique for making logo's on transparency film. Some things have worked better than others. I tried 3 different techniques:

1) photocopy reversed logo onto transparency

2) inkjet reversed logo onto transparency

3) laserprint reversed logo onto transparency

The photo copy was okay, but the ink could be scratched off too easy with a stray fingernail.

The inkjet behaved the worst out of the three. It printed okay, but once the silver pen touched the plastic, everything got ugly. The silver ran everywhere. I couldn't stay in the lines.

So, the best of the three was the laser printed version. It did something to the plastic. It baked it so the silver didn't run on it at all. Here's a photo of the best one so far. I colored in making several small dots with the silver pen. I tried to "write" with it, and it was too messy. Go slowly and take your time (just like everything else in this business). :D

JellycasterLogo.jpg

Now, I'm going to try to attach this baby to a piece of scrap wood. I found some Deft clear gloss lacquer at WalMart. Given that Deft is Brian's brand of choice, I'm pretty sure it'll be a good place to start.

Wish me luck.

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The photo copy was okay, but the ink could be scratched off too easy with a stray fingernail.

The inkjet behaved the worst out of the three. It printed okay, but once the silver pen touched the plastic, everything got ugly. The silver ran everywhere. I couldn't stay in the lines.

When buying paper to put in your printer (especially transparencies and photo paper) check to see it's compatibility with your printer. Many specialty papers (transparencies, cardstock, photo paper, etc.) are made specifically for different types of printers and with photo paper ever BRANDS of printers (that is HP optimizes its printers for HP photo paper, Lexmark optimizes its printers for KODAK paper, etc.)

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That's a good point about the paper and printers. I suppose anyone that's going to attempt this will have to experiment to some degree then. I spent a lot of time last night just getting the painting technique down. It's tedious work, as BeAR suggests, but it is worth it.

I'm going to attempt to attach a logo onto some wood tonight. According to the directions on the Deft spray can, it sets up in 30 minutes, 20 minutes to the touch. How long do you think I should wait before putting the decal on a tacky coat? I figure I should wait a few minutes. If I put it on right away, it might dissolve the inks.

Any suggestions from those that have worked with laquers already?

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What have I started?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Looks fantastic mate. Its not all that hard to do and looks professional too.

:D Ive got a few other things to do so its going to be a while until I get to apply one with laquer. Hopefully you can do it soon and let us all know how it goes (with pics of course).

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I experimented with the finishing last night. And again, I have some things that have worked better than others. I tried three different things. Here's the scoop:

1) Spray a coat of lacquer onto wood and apply decal to tacky coat.

Ick, no! Turns out that both the ink from the laser printer and the silver paint pen dissolve quite nicely in tacky (or even wet) lacquer. In short, this is not a good idea. After all the hard work that you'll put into your logo, you'll ruin it all once the lacquer hits the ink. Time to think of something else.

Digging around in my wifes craft closet, I spot a can of photo mount and some modge podge. Paydirt!

2) Use spraymount (a 3M photomount) to attach decal and lacquer over that.

I sprayed a good layer of adhesive on the ink side of the decal, wait a few seconds and slap it on to the scrap wood. I let it set while I worked with the Modge Podge (discussed below) and then sprayed an abundant coat of lacquer on top of that. If I were really finishing, I'd build up the coat more slowly, but this is just a test. The results aren't bad. The lacquer did creep under the decal a little, and where it touched the ink it ran just a little. But, I don't like the way the decal looks. It looks suspended above the wood. It makes it look foggy.

3) Modge Podge decal and lacquer over that.

So, not too surprisingly, Modge Podge worked the best. Considering that Brian suggests (or at least has a photo of) the stuff in the material finish tutorial, it seems like this is a natural way to go. The logo gets glued to the wood with the Modge Podge. Let that cure up and sand it flat (which I didn't do in this test), and then hit it with a few coats of lacquer.

Here's the photo. Nearfield is the photomounted version, farfield is the modge podge version.

JellycasterLogoTest.jpg

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Okay, so this is very strange. I used Matte ModgePodge for my test, and I did another test last night using Gloss. For some reason the Gloss MP pulls the ink off the transparency and the Matte MP doesn't.

This is very frustrating.

With the 3 day weekend coming up, I'm going to continue experimenting with different adhesives and sealants until I have the perfect combination.

With all of the dissoving ink problems that I've had, I'm probably going to have to coat the design with something before I attach it to the headstock. Plasticoat comes to mind. I've had good luck with it in the past. Or, I may just apply a thin layer of the Matte MP since it seems to be the safest so far.

Any suggestions of things to try at this point are welcome.

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That looks great jehle! ,

so tell me how do you guys do it???

do you make the logo from scratch or do you "borrow" one from the fender site and modify it?

i made one myself that is a rudey word! tee hee hee! but its solid black, and the resolution aint great.

what program should i use?

thanks , and keep up the great work! rock

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That looks great jehle! ,

so tell me how do you guys do it???

do you make the logo from scratch or do you "borrow" one from the fender site and modify it?

i made one myself that is a rudey word! tee hee hee! but its solid black, and the resolution aint great.

what program should i use?

thanks , and keep up the great work! rock

Making the logo is the easy part. Attaching it is quite a different story.

BTW, I just noticed that there is a tutorial (sort of) on this topic. It links to the StewMac site here. I like how it says, "be aware that the solvents in lacquer may soften the decal's ink." That's a huge understatement. In my experiments so far, I've had some combinations that have completely melted down.

As for how you draw out the logo, that's the easy part. I used CorelDraw 5.0 (really ancient release before the dawn of CD's), and I think BeAR used Photoshop 6. In both cases, we traced around the logo with Bezier curves. Most good quality drawing programs should have them. They may be called splines too. Basically the same thing. Other than that, it's just a print out on a transparency. The silver is drawn in with a silver pen.

Once I get the whole technique down, I'm going to make a photo of the process, step-by-step. I want to come up with something that's a little more idiot proof. I'm a newbie at all this, so if I can make it work for me, I figure anyone else can too.

Glad you like the logo. It's all BeAR's fault for making me do this. :D

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Well, I think I've hit upon a formula that works. It's fool proof. Even I couldn't mess it up. Believe me, I tried.

Here's tonights experiment. It's fixed to some scrap wood, all it needs now is several coats of lacquer. The trick was finding the right order of inks, paints, and glues to make it all work without self destructing. I'll take pictures of my steps in the morning.

In short, here's what worked:

1) Laser printed logo on transparency. Remember, logo is reversed.

2) Fill in the logo with the silver paint pen. Wait for it to dry.

3) With a small brush, lightly cover the silver paint with a coat of matte finish Mod Podge (don't use gloss because it'll eat the paint). Try to be neat, but if you are a little messy, you won't be able to see it in the next step. Wait for that to dry.

4) Spray the decal with a spray adhesive (I used a liberal amount of 3M photomount).

5) Slap it on the headstock and press it down so it seats well. No bubbles. Let that set.

6) Lacquer coat and finish the head stock as usual. The logo is protected by the transparency film. Build up the coats slowly to avoid softening the spray mount (much less risky than disolving the ink of the logo).

Presto, nearly foolproof custom logo!

JellycasterLogoFixed.jpg

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Well a Big thanks going out to both BeAR and Jehle for this tutorial, which brings the count up to 75 on and off site tut's party

Brian, I had two words misspelled in the tutorial on purpose. B)

I was trying to make a point that you should avoid making a STARTocaster with a CEREAL number.

I was in a guitar shop one day and there was a guitar in for repair. Nevermind why, but someone wanted to write "My Little Angel" on their guitar body. Instead, they had "My Little Angle". :D

Anyway, if you wouldn't mind, put the misspelled words back in the text. Thanks...

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Bear , Jehle ,

seeing as i am very bad at using graphics programs, would there be any chance you could email me a copy of your "Fender" logo? i wont plagiarise it that bad! :D

i would love to make a righhanded playing left handed shaped 70`s big headstock strat in jimmy hendrix white and call it an afrocaster as someone mentioned earlier! ...

please please please .. pretty please!

or at least show me where to download something similar.

thanks,

john

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  • 3 weeks later...
Very interesting!

However, what the hell is modge podge? (I'm in Europe and most people here think modge podge is the evil power in star wars...:-)

It's actually Mod Podge, or "Modern Decupage". You can read too much about it here... www.modgepodge.com

Decupage supplies should be available at any craft store. Mind you, I've never really looked for the stuff in Europe.

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