Where to get '06 600 Decals

[Spliff]

I'm in the process of painting my '01 750 black, and I was going to attempt taping parts off and painting them gunmetal/silver. I saw the decals on the '06 600 and figured I'd just get them and put them on...but I can't find em anywhere. I just want to get the the ones that say Katana with the silver/white graphics for the front fairings and the ones on the back fairing. Anybody know where I can get some?

http://www.suzukicycles.com/Products/GSX600FK6/Default.aspx

[brooder]

Did you try your local Suzuki dealer? They should be able to order them for you.

[KansasKat]

The dealer will have them available.

You can also try www.xtreemedecals.com.

[brooder]

Careful of that link. It added the period at the end. Also, I don't think those are the decals s/he (sorry, I don't know for sure) is looking for.

[SSMtC05]

I would check with the dealer or maybe even www.ronayers.com may have them.

Jay

[Spliff]

Thanks for the help. I was thinking about putting them on there, but I think I might just bring a hot design to a vinyl sign shop and have them make me some.

[Fork]

If you transfer your design to an outline (vector format, and it can be done in Corel Draw with a little effort) and get a 10 yards X 15" roll of vinyl from Ameriban 800-654-8405 for around $15 the vinyl shop should not charge you much at all to cut it.

If you don't have or don't know anyone that has Corel, e-mail me some of the Kat/Suzuki logos and I'll vectorize them and maybe we can post them as templates.

[The CyberPoet]

Thanks for the help. I was thinking about putting them on there, but I think I might just bring a hot design to a vinyl sign shop and have them make me some.

Things to know about vinyl signage & decals if you go this route:

(A) The quality of the vinyl and it's ability to stand up to solar exposure varies highly by brand. Most sign guys will tell you 3M outdoor grade vinyl is probably the best (it probably is), but they may upcharge you for it if they don't quote it normally.

(B) There are two ways to do this kind of decal - solid vinyl cut to size or clear vinyl printed with color (think of a thin-film of color being melted over the clear by a specialty vinyl printer).
Solids have the advantage of usually lasting longer (esp. white) before yellowing from UV; prints have the advantage of more colors & combined colors (single decal - no need to edge match), plus gradients and photo-realistic stuff. With the kind of decal design that's default on the 01, you may want to ask about print-on-white (as verses to print-on-clear).

(C) Quality varies from shop to shop in any given area (and this is part of the reason tricktape.com gets a lot of work -- they are well known for the quality), so if you go locally, ask around who does good work. Then call them and ask them what kind of graphics formats they prefer for the type of decal you want (solid cut vinyls usually give the best results from EPS files, while printed usually work best with layered TIFF files of a specific dot-per-inch density to match the printer's capabilities).

(D) Don't hesistate to consider hiring (or bribing with beer, etc) a professional graphic artist to create your designs. You may come out with something that is significantly better than what you originally planned.

and finally:

(E) The surface of your fairings isn't perfectly flat. Try to take that into consideration when sizing the templates (again, this is a place where tricktape.com and others who specialize in motorcycles & vehicle signage usually have an advantage; they may even already have templates for the right shape). Most vinyls will stretch some to compensate, but print-on vinyls can distort images if stretched too much

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[Fork]

(solid cut vinyls usually give the best results from EPS files, .....


Totally wrong, EPS sucks just as all the outline programs do. The only way you can get the best outline of any scan is to do it manually.

Yeah, printing on a rolls is fine and it costs less if you have 50 bikes to do with the same design. What would it cost to do one?

[The CyberPoet]

(solid cut vinyls usually give the best results from EPS files

Totally wrong, EPS sucks just as all the outline programs do. The only way you can get the best outline of any scan is to do it manually.

As a consultant, I'm responsible for a number of signage shops' computers, printers and cutters. All the cutters use some form of mathematically-described instructions to control the cut-heads, and most of the ones I've seen use postscript as their language (the ones that don't can convert postscript at the driver).
Fork is correct that if you are starting with a scan (which by default is dots), it [u]can[/b] be a PIA at the signage shop if you just embed the scan in an EPS file (because it just adds a layer of complexity and they have to manually trace the lines unless the software supports auto-tracing).
On the other hand, if the design itself is made in a program that supports EPS for the actual file rendering (Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw), then there should be no modifications that need to be done by the signage people to get it to cut exactly as you laid it out for most plotter-style cutters, except possibly rotating pieces around to maximize the yield from a specific piece of vinyl if there are multiple pieces (shapes) to be cut out of that color.

Yeah, printing on a rolls is fine and it costs less if you have 50 bikes to do with the same design. What would it cost to do one?

How many colors, how many linear inches? Generally, I expect to pay about $1.25 per linear inch on a 18" wide roll on 3M outdoor grade clear, plus 75 cents per inch per color, plus whatever time overhead the shop requires to clean up my work if it's not an ready-to-print format. Thus, figure I'll pay about $50 for a 24" long 2-color print on clear (black + spot burgundy for example) if the file is ready to print.
Prices do vary between shops and that same print may go from a low of about $40 to a high of about $140, depending on the shop and turn-around-time requirements.

If you've got the $$, find an old sign painter and get him/her to paint the decal work directly onto the bike, skipping the decal... it'll last as long as the paint (no yellowing, fading), but it's a dying art and sign painters with that type of talent are hard to find (often it'll be the oldest guy in the sign shop, the one who was doing such things before the whole computer decal process come along).

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[Fork]

CyberP is right, if you want quality go look for a old sign painter or someone that is good with the airbrush. Or get an airbrush and do it yourself.

I think I have one of the oldest vinyl cutter (that still works) and after 20 year of cutting the stuff I can tell you that stickers look like stickers. Yeah, from 50 yards away they look fine but I would not paste them on my ride. I even shot layers of clear over them and they still looked like something from a kid's meal box.

You can get them cut as a negative and it'll serve as a masking for the paint. Paint jobs are a bitch, especially when you are almost finished. Then all the ideas come floating in but you got it already covered with clear. It is the process that counts and that should be enjoyed, so if it needs to sanded again, so what.

[Spliff]

you know, now that i have all this info, i may just wait till summer and get the bike airbrushed. i'm doing the paint job the best way it can be done, so i might as well not go cheap on the finished product. thanks for the help again.

[Negster]

I bought my bike a couple of weeks ago with just one "Suzuki" decal above the headlight. I asked the dealer about getting the original decals for the bike and they said that the decals were very expensive and suggested having a sign company cut the decals for me. I checked out the prices myself and discovered that the side decals are $123.72 for EACH side and the rear fender decals are $34.91 for EACH side and the silly looking eyelashes by the headlight are $13.90 EACH side. That was a total of $345.06 for the original decals.

I took a profile photo of the bike and began to design my own graphics from ideas I got from other bikes. I put a few of my own to personalize it and drew it on the image of the bike using MS Photo Editor, Adobe Photoshop and MS Paint. I took the design to a sign shop and they requested a template of the design in a TIF file type format so they can convert it. I then erased the entire image of the bike and the background except for the design of the graphics. The sign shop converted it, printed it out on paper to place over the bike to make sure it fit. We made some adjustments since I drew it on a flat surface and the bike is quite rounded. They made some adjustments then cut the vinyl in the colors that I needed. Because the owner of the sign shop was a friend of mine, he did not charge me and he let me do the installation myself as he coached me along the way. I placed the decals on the bike and did some trimming and it was all said and done in about 3 hours from the time I drove into the shop and the time that I drove out of the shop. :P

You can see my Ride Profile to see the final product of what the bike used to look like and what it currently looks like.

Good luck with your bike.

[KansasKat]

Looks good!!!!! I like it cause you didn't go overboard. I don't like the looks of a bike where you see the same thing more than once from each side........example: 'Katana', 'Suzuki'...etc.

Good job.

[Negster]

Thanks for the compliment...it should be noted that the graphics are much smoother in real life than what they look like in the images. The lines look jagged in the photos, but they are not in real like. Reducing the size of the images to post them kinda distorted them a little.