Opinions on Victor Back Bracket Decals

[EarlH]

I've done 4-5 back brackets and I've always used the decals that Eduardo has and I've had good luck with them. I didn't save any of the pictures I took though. I also used some artist's brushes to help push the decals where I needed them to be and I also usually put a drop of dish soap in the water to help them slide around a little more easily as well and then work the water out from under the decal with a nylon artist's brush that is a little bit stiffer. I never tried brushing a finish over them though and always just sprayed lacquer over them. Sometimes I'll add some amber trans-tint dye to the lacquer to darken the gold up some.

You are right about the blue fading. They had a terrible time with blues in those days, red also but I don't think that was as much trouble as they had with blue. And it usually fades almost completely or it goes off towards a nasty green color. I forget which coin operated piano company it was, but they had a large decal with what everyone though for years had an ugly green background. And then someone found a decal that never got used stuck in an book or envelope and it turned out that it originally was a very nice shade of blue. I painted houses for an old guy 35 years ago and Bill started in the 20's. He always shook his head when he saw an old house getting painted blue and complained that they never would have done that before WWII. Bill was a funny old guy but really knew his trade.

I used to sell treadle sewing machine on ebay 20 years ago and got a bunch of the "Treadle-on" gals mad at me because I had a sewing machine head that was so black and nasty that I could read the name so in my ad I mentioned that it would be easy to tie a rope around it and use it as a boat anchor! A big part of that bunch has NO sense of humor. Anyway, some gal in Wyoming bought for $10 it because of all the nasty things that got said about me on that website, not to mention all the nasty emails I got (remember when your user ID was your email address?) About a month later I got an email from her with a photo of a really nicely decorated head that was shaped like the one I sold her, and I thanked her for letting me know who made it. It turned out it was the machine I sent her. She soaked it in kerosene for a couple of weeks and it came out looking almost like new! And then I got another rash of emails from the Treadle on women made at me for not cleaning it up first... Oh well, and there's almost no money in most of those old sewing machines again.

It's too bad that the varnish transfer decals are no longer being made as they are easier to apply when it's something complicated. They could put gold or silver foil behind the ink and it almost glows when light is on it. Look at the dog if you have an L-door Victrola. Victor used translucent dye in that part of the decal in those days. They stopped doing it at the end of the L-door machines or right after the next style came out. It was probably tricky to get that set up correctly. Those people were sure detail oriented.

[Roaring20s]

I enjoyed reading this thread.
Good work ... they look great!

James.