Quote:
Originally Posted by Petedox
I the past I have used photoshop to reconstruct damaged glass fascias, so toyed with the idea of copying the nameplate onto a new transparent film and sticking this to the back of a perspex blank....but I get a feeling this wouldn't look right.
Any ideas gratefully received!
Pete
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I think you'd stand a better chance Pete if rather than a transparency, you created a cleaned up image using Photoshop and printed a waterslide transfer on 'decal' paper which you can get for both laser and ink-jet printers. (I've only used in on ink-jet). For a label attached directly to a solid background white paper produces best results, but to apply it to the rear of a clear glass or acrylic panel you'd need to use clear film rather than white as you'll need to reverse the image and apply the transfer to the rear of the clear acrylic blank. You can't reverse an image printed on white decal paper to apply to the reverse of a clear acrylic or glass panel because when you slide the transfer off its backing paper, the rear of the transfer is white.
My only reservation about how authentic the image would look is that the clear film isn't very opaque. It's fine when applied to a solid background such as a blank painted metal radio dial panel viewed through glass, but is unsuitable for a clear glass radio dial. As an example, some time ago I printed off some reversed scans of various DAC90A dials which looked excellent whist still on the white backing paper, but when applied to the rear of the glass, where some areas of the design need to be completely opaque and others areas, 'see through'. The result was very 'wishy washy'. I tried to apply another transfer on top of the first one for better opacity. Nice try - no cigar!
On the other hand, I've successfully applied designs I've printed on clear film to solid backgrounds as shown below in the first three pics - a WCR receiver dial decal applied to a solid sprayed plate, a label on VP4 valve that I'd 'prettied up' and on a smoothing cap I refurbished.
In pic 4, I've tidied up the QUAD image a bit that you uploaded, just for illustrative purposes using Photoshop and I think it might be worth you experimenting with along those lines. If you reversed the image, created a decal using clear film, applied it to the rear of the clear acrylic panel, if it wasn't opaque enough when placed against your amp, you might be able to improve on that by spraying the rear of the decal with a fairly close matching paint to the label design - metallic silver for example, or 'mink'.
The paper is quite expensive for small quantities - £3.99 for one sheet, £7.99 for five sheets, but given how much time, effort and expertise you've put into the total refurbishment of you Quad, it might be worth experimenting with.
I've usually bought my paper from 'Mr Decal Paper' on ebay:
For ink-jet printers:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/18184016487...RoC3CEQAvD_BwE
For laser printers.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Water-Sli....c100677.m4598
Though not directly relevant to your present issue, it might be worth mentioning again that when making water-slide transfers on white paper, there's the advantage that you can mimic white printed text, which we know you can't print on a normal printer, as shown in the examples in pic 5 below.
Hope that might be food for thought Pete.
Thanks for the link to your website and your Quad refurbishments - wow, most impressive!
Quote of the day:
'Success consists of going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm'.
Winston Churchill.