By signcraft
Posted on Sunday, April 7th, 2024
In January 2021 we posted an interesting article by Jim Fetten, Fetten Sign Company, Jamesport, New York, on how he did gold emblems and traditional shaded ornaments for fire apparatus on Real Gold 22K gold leaf film. His approach lets him produce the graphics in the shop then apply to the vehicle later.
Jim cuts the graphics to shape then paints on the Real Gold film using red and black 1 Shot enamel. The shading is done with 1 Shot 4003 Clear with a little Tinting Black added. He then cuts the vinyl lettering from 3M series 7125 film and leaves the graphic to dry.
Finally, he applies a masked sheet of 3M enamel receptive clear on top of the shield, making a “3M film sandwich” as he calls it, using the wet application method. Then the graphic is cut out, leaving a ¼-in. border. This particular shield was for the door of a pickup truck door and was roughly 15-by-18-in. The traditional dimensional scroll below was done using the same technique.
