Decals over carbon fiber?

[Fibonacci]

I have done the waterslide transfer trick on a few pens before, but they were all light colored blanks. I am thinking about trying to do a transfer of a flame gradient onto one of Captain G's carbon fiber blanks.

I am concerned about the colors being all washed out by the black background.

Has anyone tried this or have some advice on making it work?

 

[rossvh]

I just tried to put a decal on a carbon fiber blank and was not happy with the results. On my blank the clear acrylic is critical so the carbon fiber mesh stands out. I have put many decals on wood pens and built them up with CA but that didn't work with the carbon fiber blank. The CA clouded the CF too much for my taste. I tried to micro mesh the CA each time but that's dangerous with a decal so I after 2 tries I gave up. I would be interested if you can make this work. Hopefully you can enlighten me on what I'm doing wrong.

 

[jallan]

just a guess but it you put a coat of CA over the carbon fiber let it cure than put decal on over that with other coats of CA would that work?

 

[Fibonacci]

Did the coloring fade with over the fiber?

I have had good success turning blanks a bit small, adding the decals, then building up a CA finish over the whole thing, then MM polishing it.

Guess I will give it a try and see what happens. Expensive screwup (by my standards) if it doesn't work though.

 

[rossvh]

Yes, that's how I've added decals as well, but the carbon fiber blank requries a very clear finish and the thin CA I used made it blurry and clouded. The first time I tried it, I thought I needed to add more layers of CA so I did about 10 - but that didn't work, so I went the other way and only used 4 coats and it was still blurry.