Recommend me a custom decal maker in the UK

[gravetxt-1]

Contacted TKR Graphics based in the UK but not had a reply yet. Any recommendations? I need this image making into a decal.

 

 

[backtomyroots]

Not UK based but I contacted FREQESKINZ owner and he did a complete custom body wrap for one of my R/C cars.  All I did was email him some high resolution images of what I wanted (along with shipping the body).

Was excellent deal and quickly finished.  I'm sure a decal would be even faster.

Try contacting him perhaps ?

http://www.freqeskinz.com/

 

[TWINSET]

http://www.screenprintdigital.com/

Always had good service from 'em

[Mad Ax]

Is it true that screenprintdigital will only deal with people who understand the formats and other requirements of commercial printers?  I've heard it said that they won't reply to anyone who doesn't talk the correct language.

I've been designing graphics and decals for years but because I'm entirely self-taught, I'm worried that I'll go in with the wrong lingo and scare them away from dealing with me.

[Roasty]

Have you contacted Jon (RCS) on face book, he's normally very good.

[gravetxt-1]

4 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

Is it true that screenprintdigital will only deal with people who understand the formats and other requirements of commercial printers?  I've heard it said that they won't reply to anyone who doesn't talk the correct language.

I've been designing graphics and decals for years but because I'm entirely self-taught, I'm worried that I'll go in with the wrong lingo and scare them away from dealing with me.

I hope not I will be contacting them tomorrow if I get nowhere with TKR Graphics. TKR replied and said no problem to the Gauntlet decals I then asked whether they will be contour cut and they have gone quiet.

 

Another request might have made them quiet I asked for another set of decals this time with the text CLAWING DEAD like the font used with the Grim Reaper truck below. But with luminous purple/ white Instead of blue/ white.

 

Being honest I know nothing about printing industry I have no idea what is possible and what is not

[yogi-bear]

8 hours ago, gravetxt-1 said:

...

 

Being honest I know nothing about printing industry I have no idea what is possible and what is not

I can give you a bit of an idea of what is possible.

Screen printing is great, and you can use custom inks which means interesting colours, but you need to make a screen for each colour you want, so it can become expensive, quickly. Screens are permanent too, I would guess that for a small one-off sticker it may be more trouble that its worth. 

As for printed decals/stickers, there are lots of wide format/sticker machines on the market today, and just about every sign shop will have one. The issue for most sign companies taking on a job would be the size of the print and having to set it all up. I am sure most are happy to do it, but you would pay a lot of money though.

There are also wide format/sticker printers that can print white. White printing allows you to lay down a white backing print so you can print onto clear or a dark background and you still get good colour density. Otherwise you have to print onto white vinyl only. This is what I've done for some of my cars, Audi, Renault Mk22 Martini and a Pantera.

For most single colour decals, I tend to vinyl cut my stickers in that colour as the colour tends to be nicer and if it gets scratch its not as noticeable. Plus in vinyl you can get some really nice metallics etc.

Cutting vinyl or stickers is done with a vinyl cutter and the smallest text I have done is about 4 mm high, and thats with a well setup cutter. I'm pretty sure thats about the limit of vinyl cutting in general. The goodyear stickers on my renault are cut in black vinyl and where a pain to weed out and I doubt I could get my cutter to go much smaller than that as some of the fine cuts end up being too close together and the vinyl doesn't seem to cope.

With print and cut, its all about alignment, so where there is not much margin, registration of the cut to the print can be a pain and even 0.25 mm shift can be noticeable. Also the artwork has to be setup for printing and cut, not hard to do, but a lot of printers would probably prefer to receive a print ready file rather than having to go through and edit it.

I've written two articles for Lars at Tamiyabase, first article is here, and there is a link to the second article at the bottom that explain vinyl cutting, colours and decals in general, plus there is another excellent article on making your own decals at home.

[gravetxt-1]

Many thanks to TWINSET screenprintdigital.com are excellent nothing is too much trouble for them only charged me six pounds postage included! Quality of decals is top notch photo is below