MIGZ said:
What is the difference between water slide and vinyl?
I will try to answer this to the best of my knowledge.
Vinyl: is a soft rubber type of material which is mostly available in 3 types of flexibility. The most expensive is the most flexible and thinnest giving it the ability to contour to oddly shaped objects. The middle type is the most used in the industry which is slightly thicker than the most expensive but can still be used on some curved items. The least expensive is used for flat signs but can still be bent to some degree. All of them can be used on a surface that has been powder coated and in most cases a heat gun will facilitate the vinyl to contour to the surface. On any paint job you can cover it under the clear coat making it last virtually for ever. That is unless there is an accident and it gets scratch hard enough.
Water slide decals: they are basically a print out of the art on a special type of paper. Then it gets sprayed with a special type of clear coat. When you do the hole process of inserting the decal in water then ink holds on to the clear coat and the paper is left behind. So basically you are transferring a piece of clear coat on to a surface. This piece of clear coat is stiff and it has very little flexibility. Being that a power coated surface is not smooth the decal which is nothing else than a piece of clear coat does not have the flexibility to mold to the surface.
There is 2 types of water slide decals.
The old. that if you get to find an original one you will see that it has turned slightly yellow. This is caused because back then they used lead in the clear coat used to make it stronger to the elements and that it would not fall of your bike when it got wet in the rain.
The new: you can buy the paper on ebay and make water slide decals with your inkjet printer. You will also need to get the special clear coat. It turns out that this new ones are not very durable and in most cases not waterproof.in some cases they tend to start cracking in a matter of days ruining an expensive paint job. They work good on model cars that don't get wet.
Most people here have a bit of experience doing rattle can paint jobs so what happens if you paint today, wait for the paint to dry and then hit with clear coat. You will have a shiny surface. But what would happen if after a week or more you shoot it again with clear coat. Yes the paint will start to lift. That's what happens when you shoot clear coat over a water slide decal which is basically a piece of clear coat. The instructions provided by hyper performance indicate that you can clear coat over his decals but only one coat. Any body that knows a little about that would know that if you only to one coat of clear you will loose it after you have buffed it. That is why professional car painters shoot 7 coats of clear. You loose 2 or 3 coats when you sand down the clear coat and then loose 1 or 2 more when you buff. Leaving you a smooth and shiny surface. In my opinion on coat of clear over the paint job just so the decal doesn't get messed up will prevent me from having a really shiny paint job.
Hope this helped and sorry if I made any typos as I didn't read after I wrote.
Peace
