Decal logo With a oil or poly finish?

[roberthabraken]

I am in the process of designing my own logo for my basses (and maybe guitars in the future). The logo I like best however, doesn't lend itself for using an inlay technique and should probably applied via a decal. But my preferred finish is an oil finish, or wipe on poly.. And the tutorials I saw about water slide decals all instruct you to finish off with a layer of clear lacquer over the decal. My question is if there is a technique where you can use a decal with a professional result, while still using an oil finish or something equivalent?

[Landy67]

Is the logo you want to use the one in your avatar? That would be a easy one to have laser etched, and then you could put an oil finish on top without a problem.

[roberthabraken]

Originally Posted by Landy67

Is the logo you want to use the one in your avatar? That would be a easy one to have laser etched, and then you could put an oil finish on top without a problem.

No, I haven't published it yet, because it isn't finished. The avatar shape would be easy to inlay though. What I had in mind was my last name written in a small script font.

[superquick]

I do my decals with water slide and on my first bass I used tru-oil over it and I put down coat after coat of it and just couldn't get it to level out because it's so thin of a layer. However on the build I'm currently doing I used poly on just the headstock and the lines of the decal are disappearing after 3 or 4 coats. Poly goes on thicker than oils, from what I found. I can get some pics of the results if you want to show what I'm talking baout

[roberthabraken]

Thanks! Some photos would be great. Is the result okay on your Tru oiled bass? Despite the fact that the lines didn't level out?

[superquick]

This is how it came out with the tru oil. It lays down great and It did even better on my most recent build using a different technique. The way i did it on this one, however involved some pretty heavy coats. You might could build it up enough to get it even, but it would take some work.



now this one is after about 4 coats after I put the decal on. I put down 3 coats before the decal, the decal on the third coat, and then this is around 4 coats on top of the decal





And on this one i tru-oiled everything except for the face of the headstock and fingerboard. The headstock has poly on it

[roberthabraken]

Thanks, it's a good example for reference., which is what I was looking for. You can indeed see the area of the decal having a different reflection, but technically it seems to work.

[superquick]

Oh yeah. It'll definitely work. And if you look at it from certain angles you can't see a difference at all. That also was my first attempt at doing it so someone with more expirience than me could probably pull it off