Decals smearing

[TexanTrail]

I'm working on a couple of pens. Osage orange blanks. I've sanded them down and applied 5 coats of thin CA. Sanded that smooth. I got some college decals from mudhole.com. Put them on the pens. First coat of thin CA I put on afterwards smeared the ink on the decals.

Luckily I ordered 2 for each college. What can I do to keep this from happening again?

Thanks,
David

 

[truckfixr]

I always use a fairly thick coat of medium CA for the initial coat over a decal. Only make one or two quick passes back and forth to smooth it and allow it time to cure a bit. If you make too many passes on the initial coat you can dissolve the sealer on the decal and smear the ink. After you have one or two good coats of CA it's clear sailing.

 

[Eldermike]

I made some pens with homemade decals. Printed them on my Ink jet. The kit I used the Testor brand decal kit that came with a clear spray that sets the ink and prevents smearing of the ink.


Sent from my iPhone using Penturners.org mobile app

 

[cleve]

spray the decal with a lacquer let it dry then put it on your pen. The lacquer will protect
the ink from running when you put the CA on . Lorbay showed me this and it works .

 

[TexanTrail]

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Woodchipper]

When I build fishing rods, I applied the decal over a thin coat of rod building epoxy. Even graphite has pores. I then put a thin coat of Flexcraft Color Preserver over the decal. This seals the edges and cover the ink on the decal.
Or spray the decal with something like Krylon Fix-A-Tif or any polyurethane.

 

[TexanTrail]

I ended up putting on the decal and dripping on the decal some thin CA glue. Let it dry and then dripped some more CA glue on the decal. Both times without the lathe running. Wiped off the excess that gathered on the bottom each time. Let it dry. Then I put 10 coats of thin CA glue on the blank. Then 3 coats of medium CA. Think my medium CA has gone bad because it chipped on one end on both blanks. Sanded the blanks down smooth and the end with the chips until it was smooth. Then went back with 5 more coats of thin CA glue. Sanded to 12000 with MM.