# Just made my first rhinestone decal



## Kim_t2_au (May 24, 2010)

Hi all

I just made my first decal  No photo yet but will take one once the car has been washed and the decal has been applied. 

A couple of things that came up or that I am not happy with.... At the last minute I realised why people make the outline a different colour stone so I sat and picked the edge stones off of the tape and then manually placed new stones in their place. This was an error as the alignment looks very poor; what I should have done was simply use the template. Oh well, lesson learned.

The stones are placed too far apart but I guess that is one of those things you learn to judge with practice.

When I looked at the decal after it went through the press (150 degree, 10 seconds, light pressure) it looked like some of the stones had not taken so I put the whole thing back in for another 10 seconds. In hindsight I realise I should have checked the stones after the whole thing cooled and then repressed if necessary.

I suspect that the second pressing also caused the ppf to become quite attached to the transfer tape so that when I tried to take the carrier tape off, it casued the ppf to stretch quite a bit. Luckily I had cut the ppf quite a bit bigger than I needed so I was able to cut the wavey edges off.

Finally, when I removed the transfer tape the glass dome came off of one of the stones so that all that is left in place is the shiny base. Do you think think I could / should my applicator wand to replace that lost stone or do people have another way of dealing with this situation.

Phew, that's me. Gonna go back to my template and play with the spacing and see if can improve it.

Kim


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## RCouture (Jul 21, 2011)

You might want to add more heat, but good job. It does take some trial and error the first couple of times! The more you do it, the better you get!


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## Leg cramps (Feb 9, 2009)

Kim, good to see your post, congrads on the first decal. Cant wait to see the picture. Yes you will want to make a template for the fill and one for the outline. You will want to get your spacing as close as possible with your stones and you will want to contour cut your decal close to the rhinestones edge with your design software. Now cut your ppf and weed off the extra ppf .now when you press you wont have to worry about the transfer tape sticking. You can try to pluck the stone glue off the decal and put another stone there and repress. I don't like your heat press settings doesn't sound right. I press my decals at 300 for 22 seconds medium pressure. The main thing is when you get done pressing you will see a small ring around the stones where they have melted into the decal. I don't wait to peel my tape as soon as the press comes up I peel it off. Decals can be tricky,I almost gave up on them when I first started, now its a daily routine.


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## SparkleWear (Apr 17, 2013)

Leg cramps said:


> Decals can be tricky,I almost gave up on them when I first started, now its a daily routine.


LC, can you post pictures of your decals? I'm a (greener than green) newbie and would love to see what they look like. Oh, duh, guess I could do a search!


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