PAF sticker font?

[David Schwab]

Or, "this isn't Future Demibold"

You know, I have a zillion fonts, and I don't have Futura in demibold. I have every other style imaginable. Weird.

[Possum]

...

Unbelievable, I just got in a pair of 1957 goldtop PAF's to fix, here's an actual photo of the decal.....

[Possum]

...

Mine say "if you can read this you're too close."

Actually they say, "this is a forgery, you were swindled."

My new ones are going to say "removal of this decal will destroy your tone."

Or...."Pepsi or Coke?"

Or, "this isn't Future Demibold"

[David Schwab]

Mine say:

PATIENT APPLIED FOR



There's no such thing as 'sanity clause.

[David King]

My sticker is going to say "PATENT I LIED FOR"

[tonedeciple]

That looks as bad as the decal Gibson is making now Wouldn't fool anyone. Take a look at my avatar, thats a real low res version of the artwork I did for mine...

That's what it would look like the second it came off press. If you want it to look like a vintage forgery, you'd have to convert it to a vector file in Adobe Illustrator and tweak the shapes to look like a rough print job. Then, you could "age" it in Photoshop or use some other post-print aging technique. But I still believe the base font is Futura.

[David Schwab]

Ah, now the big question is if you haven't applied for a patent on something, can you legally put a sticker on saying you have?

And why do you guys want to even bother with this? Why not stick a big Gibson logo on your stuff then? Or maybe Gibson's patent number (for the LP tailpiece).

[Possum]

...

That looks as bad as the decal Gibson is making now Wouldn't fool anyone. Take a look at my avatar, thats a real low res version of the artwork I did for mine...

[tonedeciple]

Futura is the closest font I could find.

[David Schwab]

they were silk screened. I don't think offset printing existed back then, only letterpress and no way would those be letterpress. Also you can tell they are silk screened because the letters plug up from excess ink and because the area outside the black is the lacquer coating which darkens over time. Its also hard to print metallic gold inks with rich larger grained powders in offset.

Exactly. I wasn't sure if offset printing was around back then, but I didn't think it was because my brother used to do hot lead typesetting when I was a kid. So it wasn't common. And you can't do decals that way.

[EDIT] I looked it up and rotary offset printing was invented in 1875. Rubber offset rollers were invented in 1901. But it's still not what was used for printing decals. It wouldn't be possible to do it for a decal since it's on the backing sheet. It's actually formed by the screen printing process.

I've been in commercial offset printing since 1980, and I've never seen decals printed. They are screen printed.

[Bill M]

Yah. You are probably right about the screen printing. Come to think of it the letters are slightly raised on a paf decal which would be indicative of screen printing. what threw me off was the doubled print on the pic I posted. I didn't think that would be possible with screen print, but I guess it is. I know fender had a screen printing machine in the 50's that they used to print all their stuff on. I have a pic of it somewhere.

[Possum]

....

they were silk screened. I don't think offset printing existed back then, only letterpress and no way would those be letterpress. Also you can tell they are silk screened because the letters plug up from excess ink and because the area outside the black is the lacquer coating which darkens over time. Its also hard to print metallic gold inks with rich larger grained powders in offset.

For my stickers I just scanned a really pristine PAF sticker and cleaned up the mistakes and fill ins. I'm not even attempting to make an accurate sticker, and using decals became a real chore to do right. You have to time it really right to get them to stick well. They do look right though...

[David Schwab]

I'm not so sure that the PAF stickers were screen printed. I've done some screen printing before and if the object moves it gets smeared, unlike this doubled print on this original PAF. Thats why I assume they were ink printed.

That decal must have been printed twice.

[ATTACH]9248[/ATTACH]

Well it is ink, but I doubt it was offset printing. I've only heard of water side decals being screen printed.

That decal was printed twice. They certainly did not use a letter press. Don't forger they also had to print the black square. With screen printing they could print opaque gold ink over the black. With offset they would have to use the black to define the shape of the letters, which would be spread under the black. You would not be able to double print the label that way on an offset press.

Decal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A water-slide (or water-dip) decal is screen-printed on a layer of water-soluble adhesive on a water-resistant paper, that must first be dipped in water prior to its application.

History of Decals

The last big deal to impact decals was the advent of silk-screen printing. Commercially developed in the 1930's(?), silk-screen printing would first make it mark not in the printing of color, but in the ability to lay down a cover-coat or top-coat of lacquer on top of the printed design. This would then be used as the transfer medium of the color, instead of the tissue paper. In 1936, the first firable decal was printed using a top-coat. It was a glass decal. But it proved to be so easy to use that within 3 years all glass decals had top-coats.

[Sam Lee Guy]

Futura demibold velly close.

[Bill M]

It wouldn't have been a machine back then. More than likely the artwork was prepared larger than needed and by hand. Then it would have been shot with a camera to produce a piece of film. That would have been used to make the decals. Water slide decals have been made using silk screen printing since the 1930s.

I'm not so sure that the PAF stickers were screen printed. I've done some screen printing before and if the object moves it gets smeared, unlike this doubled print on this original PAF. Thats why I assume they were ink printed.