Clear coat for plastic?

I would use a clear, self-adhesive film of the sort sold for applying to book dust covers. It will take a lot more to wear that off than any lacquer.

Colin Bignell

Is the fact that that is self-adhesive likely to cause any problems? What about the sort of clear plastic that is used for iPad (and mobile phone) screen protectors. Not as cheap but designed to be fingered and remove without damage and without leaving any residue.

eBay has some very inexpensive clingy-but-not-sticky screen protectors - they're easily cut to size.

Trouble is there are a number of odd shaped push buttons sticking through it and the same number LEDs, so it would have to be cut out carefully. And I don't want the sort of semi matt appearance changed.

Picture laquer maybe, assuming it does not contain a solvent. Brian

When I've done this with machine control panels, I've been able to take all the switches and lamps off. In that case, it is quite simple to lay the plastic over the whole panel and cut out the plastic covering the holes, before remounting everything. That also has the advantage that the switch and lamp bezels hide the cut edges.

As I recall, the stuff which I used to buy from Sussex Stationers (now defunct) was available in matt, semi-matt and gloss.

Colin Bignell

Sadly, no bezels. They just poke through. I have made up a printed card to fit over it which got round the worn out print, but because of the edges sort of showing round the button cutouts, it didn't look 100%. Although plastic film would be easier to cut than paper.

Right - and there would be no bubbles or whatever likely to show? Or it start lifting at an edge? A car is a pretty hostile place where you can get extremes of temperature and sunlight.

On 19/01/2012 23:53, Dave Plowman (News) wrote: ...

Not if I put it on. Other experiences may vary. :-)

So is the control panel on a machine tool, although in different ways. Perhaps the film used to tint car windows, which is designed for a car environment. A company around here that does that has one that is almost transparent.

An alternative might be an offcut from a signwriter - the stuff that is applied to vehicle sides with a hair dryer. Although I don't know whether they have that in clear,

Colin Bignell

I find bubbles aren't a problem but invisible specs of dust are... B-)

As Dave has an old panel to play with I reckon a good quality, exterior grade, matt polyurethane varnish is worth a try. Water based may side step the solvent v plastic issue. Lifting the lettering or failing to bond well enough to last are foreseeable problems. Degreasing the panel to get a good bond without lifting the lettering.

If you can test it somewhere unimportant first, how about a matt clear nail varnish just on the lettering? Many of those aren't actually matt, they are semi-matt so they may look ok. I've used a normal nail varnish on letraset before and it proved to be hard wearing, if a bit glossy. Letraset do their own protective sprays, but only in gloss and matt.

The one I bought off Ebay arrived and was rather grubby. So I stripped it down and gave it a gentle wash - and all the lettering came off. ;-) Guess it must have been Letraset. But a very convincing job made of it. So I'm going to have a bash doing just that - followed by varnish.

nail varnish is cellulose in acetone.

Dissolves almost ALL plastics except polythene. DAMHIKT.

Go to a model shop and get something for plastic models - there are spray clear lacquers that are oil based.

For me it would be the letter spacing, absolutely critical to get the spacing correct IMO, it is not the sort of thing you can do mathematically because some letters should overlap others and it also depends on the font type used, "o" and "zeros" etc are normally bigger than most other letters and will need positioning as such just above and below the baseline. There is a formulae to obtain the correct letter spacing but if you email me the words I can tell you the correct spacing, of course this will only apply to words though not single letters.

Stephen.

Most of it is just single numbers.

The lettering is all capitals and not that clever. The same guy is selling another which also looks good - most are worn, hence me wanting a decent one. Here's a link to it so you can see what it looks like:-

Letraset have a guide:

have something to copy from to use as a template.

Stephen.

You should be fine then 8-)

I couldn't save the image from the ebay link (probably ebay stopping you or javascipt or some such) anyway in Netsurf I just saved as normal but the quality is poor, probably taken with a mobile phone camera.

Stephen.

IIRC, Ebay restrict the dpi unless you pay extra for the larger size.

Oregano 1 allows you to save the image (object) so it may indeed be a Javascript thing.

Proper Letraset has guides on the sheet it to get the spacing and position correct. El Cheapo "dry transfer lettering" may not.