Decal on Roasted Maple?

[rgand]

I have a nice, new unfinished roasted maple neck. It plays great and I'd not want to mess with that. IF I decide to put a logo on my headstock, how would I do that? I don't have a sample of the neck material to play with so I can't just putz with it. Has anyone here had any experience with this?

 

[bagman67]

Well, a waterslide decal will have a visible swatch of clear material surrounding it, and you will likely want to clearcoat it to protect it.  You could mask off all but the face of the headstock and do it in a satin poly so you don't have a significant contrast with the wood. 


If you want to avoid applying any finish to the headstock at all, you could either do a laser-cut logo or silkscreen it with a permanent ink.

 

[rgand]

Thanks, Bagman. I'll do a search on laser-cut logos. Natural looks so good I don't think I want to mess with finishing without a sample to work on.

 

[rgand]

Well, a search only netted laser inlay work. I think I'll just leave it alone and enjoy the fine natural wood.

 

[DocNrock]

FWIW, I just ordered some clear waterslide decal inkjet "paper," as I want to do some custom pegface logos for my Warmoths.  If you like, I can keep this thread in mind and post my results here.  I do plan to clear-coat mine, though, with a satin finish.  I'm hoping it turns out.  I'm going to try on a guitar that means the least to me, though.

 

[line6man]

Find someone that will sell you a metal decal. Warmoth doesn't have a supplier for them anymore, but some people have them and don't use them.

 

[rgand]

FWIW, I just ordered some clear waterslide decal inkjet "paper," as I want to do some custom pegface logos for my Warmoths.  If you like, I can keep this thread in mind and post my results here.  I do plan to clear-coat mine, though, with a satin finish.  I'm hoping it turns out.  I'm going to try on a guitar that means the least to me, though.

I'm very interested to see how it comes out.

Find someone that will sell you a metal decal. Warmoth doesn't have a supplier for them anymore, but some people have them and don't use them.

this is an option I wasn't aware of. thanks for the suggestion.

 

[wildbill]

Older thread but thought this might be of interest to the OP.  I just finished a waterslide decal (Custom Luthier Supply) on the Warmoth roasted maple neck for a project I'm putting together. I am not finishing the neck but wanted to clear the decal. After taping off to expose just the peghead face, I used a couple light coats of Behlen sealer, light dry sanded, applied the decal and then cleared about 6 coats of Behlen nitro. Wet sanded to 3000 and polished with a dry papertowel. This gave me the desired result. Somewhat glossy but not substantially different than the rest of the neck. Me happy, not sure it is what you are looking for.

Note...the CLS decals are thinner than an OJ alibi, but very nice if you can get them on without wadding them into a spit-ball or ripping them in half.

 

[Logrinn]

That looks really impressive.  :icon_thumright:

 

[dmraco]

Older thread but thought this might be of interest to the OP.  I just finished a waterslide decal (Custom Luthier Supply) on the Warmoth roasted maple neck for a project I'm putting together. I am not finishing the neck but wanted to clear the decal. After taping off to expose just the peghead face, I used a couple light coats of Behlen sealer, light dry sanded, applied the decal and then cleared about 6 coats of Behlen nitro. Wet sanded to 3000 and polished with a dry papertowel. This gave me the desired result. Somewhat glossy but not substantially different than the rest of the neck. Me happy, not sure it is what you are looking for.

Note...the CLS decals are thinner than an OJ alibi, but very nice if you can get them on without wadding them into a spit-ball or ripping them in half.

I did same thing but used satin poly for top coat.  Looks more like natural wood

 

[rgand]

Thanks for the posts on this. I may want to do that at some time in the future. I have both gloss and satin finishes available. It's nice to know that done right it does work.