Waterslide Decals on Roasted Maple

[torpedovegas]

Hi Guys,

I'm planning on ordering a roasted maple neck for a strat and having a custom decal made for it (no worries, I'm not going to try and slap a fender decal on it).  It's a waterslide decal.

I tried contacting the company directly but they were super vague about their application instructions.  I asked how I should or can I apply it to a roasted maple neck with no finish and they basically gave me the instructions for applying it to a lacquered neck.

I was wondering if you guys knew of any potential complications with that, or if you’ve found that you prefer the satin finish over a bare neck.  Personally I feel like no finish at all on a roasted maple neck would be the slickest/fastest.  I’ve been playing on a glossed finish neck for years and I find it to be kind of sticky especially when I sweat.

 

[Fat Pete]

I'm not sure how well a waterslide would stick to raw maple in the first place, roasted or otherwise, but without a finish over the decal even a fairly light catch with a fingernail or a string would take off bits of it.

I'd suggest finishing just the headstock face and leaving the rest raw.

 

[BigSteve22]

I gotta go with Pete on this. Water slide decals are pretty delicate in general, and some are darned right fragile. If you use a good masking tape around the edge of the headstock, and totally mask off everything else, you'll keep the finish where you want it. Then apply several top coats over it after installation.

As for putting one on unfinished wood, I've never seen that done. The water will raise the grain under the decal and won't allow it to sit flush. I'm thinking it might crack as the the wood dries because the decal will be adhered to the raised portions. That is IF  it will stick to the bare wood at all.

:dontknow:

 

[Great Ape]

As stated above...no question about it; finish the headstock face, apply decal, final finish over decal.
Waterslides won't stick to raw wood.

 

[torpedovegas]

Thanks for the input guys.

Any thoughts on the feel of an unfinished roasted maple neck vs. a satin finish?

 

[jackthehack]

The hell with decals; for $25-30 most trophy shops can laser cut any logo/artwork into the wood, looks way mo' better...

 

[bbl4ck]

The hell with decals; for $25-30 most trophy shops can laser cut any logo/artwork into the wood, looks way mo' better...

That does sound cool :icon_thumright:
Have you had that done on any of your necks Jack?  Pics?
:rock-on:

 

[Cagey]

Any thoughts on the feel of an unfinished roasted maple neck vs. a satin finish?

The raw neck feels very much like satin as delivered. Burnishing it changes the feel to the finest silk. Much nicer than satin, and not sticky at all. I mean, it's sublime. Play one of those, and you'll never want a finish again.

 

[Cagey]

The hell with decals; for $25-30 most trophy shops can laser cut any logo/artwork into the wood, looks way mo' better...

That would be great. I'll have to call around on that one. I've wanted to do that for a long time, and even considered buying a laser engraver of my own. Problem is, the vast majority of them aren't large enough to hold a neck. When you get up to the size you need, you're talking some serious coin to get your own machine. I'm wondering if a trophy shop could ever justify anything that big either, so I never even asked.

 

[jackthehack]

I asked the guy at the shop I use and the machine they use costs $5-6K. Unsure if that includes the cost of the computer. It's not really that huge, I think they mainly use to laser etch these wooden plaque kind of things. They have to mount the peghead down to this flat surface to do the etching, so the neck has to be off the body without the tuners installed. I'm fixing to get another neck done, will see if they'll let me get a picture of the setup.

 

[jackthehack]

Here's a couple of pics:

 

[Cagey]

I like it! I wanna do it, too!

My only shot at customizing a headstock goes back to the original question about decals. I did it to the headstock of the Tele that's this month's GOM.

I did it as has been suggested already - sand it as you would for a finish, apply a couple coats of clear, apply the decal, then 3 or 4 more coats of clear to protect the decal. Do the sand/finish/sand/finish cycle for about 6 or 7 more coats using a block to sand it and level it out to bury the decal. Finish sand that up to 2000 grit, buff it out, then polish.

 

[torpedovegas]

Thanks "jackthehack" for the suggestion, as you can see it came out GREAT!

This will likely only make sense to fans of the Adam Reed creations Frisky Dingo (a 2 season show on Adult Swim 2007-2008 now available on Hulu) and the more popular FX show Archer (available on Netflix).  For those old enough watch TV-MA material, I highly recommend googling "Mr. Ford Frisky Dingo," or treat yourself and watch the whole show on Hulu.  Each episode is about 11min so you can do the whole series in about 2.5 hours.  Throughout the course of the show Mr. Ford is found in just about every job imaginable... so I thought it'd be funny if Mr. Ford has now turned his hand to making guitars.

 

[rgand]

Looks really good. I wouldn't have thought of going to a trophy shop but will consider it when I want to put a logo on a headstock.

 

[Cagey]

I agree, that's great. Can I ask what they charged to do that?

 

[torpedovegas]

I agree, that's great. Can I ask what they charged to do that?

I don't know how universal it is across the country since this seemed to be kind of a "mom and pop" shop.  But Southern Trophy House in Nashville, TN charged $38.

I designed the logo in photoshop and there was a lot of back and forth with them making sure the edges of the text would come out right in the laser etching.  I don't know how much of that they rolled into the cost.  I used a downloaded font called "Strato" for the Fender-esque brand part of the logo, which as I recall had some jagged edges to it so they actually had to download the font and kind of re-smooth it themselves.

Perhaps if you design a logo with stock Microsoft Word fonts it could be cheaper and less of a headache... personally I wanted something vaguely Fender but with my own spin on it.

 

[Cagey]

Rough estimate is good. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't $200 or something. I really like it, and would rather go that route than the buried decal thing. The decal thing is not expensive to do if you're doing it yourself, but it is a helluva lotta work.

 

[torpedovegas]

I agree, I also didn't want to have a portion of the neck lacquered even if it was just the headstock.

 

[Fat Pete]

That came out really well (as did Jack's). Definitely noted down for future projects.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

It was the late 90s, but I got a 2 color nylon die cut sticker (not a ws decal) made for $13.  It was stuck to bare wood and is still there to this day.

You don't need to, and I wouldn't, finish the whole neck to apply a decal to the headstock.

I've also put ws decals on top of finishes with good results.  The early Fenders had the decals on top of the finish.  Separate what's fake and what isn't, and they're still on there 60+ years later.