Has anyone tried to preserve the TLC stickers?

[Blakbird]

@ Blakbird...

Wow - I've never seen any that bad before...

Sadly, I have a number of sets which are this bad including the Silver Champion and the Ferrari F-1 1:8. This stickers from this era are of incredibly bad quality. As I mentioned, those from the Blockade Runner literally disintegrated. They fell into pieces less than 1mm x 1mm.

[Lord Of Pies]

I find that as soon as the stickers start to peel a wee dab of super glue does the job nicely. I can't imagine it working if the sticker starts disintegrating though.

[BryanKinkel]

That's a very good idea, and one of the things which I was considering. However, since my stickers are already destroyed, it's too late to do such a thing. I don't suppose you have a nice TIFF of the 8461 sticker sheet?

Sorry - no such luck. My scans are mainly trains & town. -- Bryan

[Karto]

I guess the better solution for a recent set would be to buy a spare sheet, as told earlier (usually very cheap for new sets). Now if the set is meant for display, I doubt there's any way to avoid peeling regarding the lack of quality of stickers over the last decade. Using clear scotch tape makes it even uglier than not applying the stickers at all. Adding glue underneath won't change the fact that the colored surface itself will discolor and peel.

The best way to preserve applied (original) stickers is to keep the set in its box (most of the time), avoiding direct and indirect UV light as well as humidity.

[Tomahawker]

That's a very good idea, and one of the things which I was considering. However, since my stickers are already destroyed, it's too late to do such a thing. I don't suppose you have a nice TIFF of the 8461 sticker sheet?

Eric,

Their is a decent quality .JPG of the sticker sheet for this set at http://www.hccamsterdam.nl/brickfactory/stikkers/index.htm.

It may not be as good as the original, but it would be better than the current ones. It's a shame a beautiful set like that was ruined by such poor quality stickers.

[Yeow]

Wow, I have sets on stickers that are more than a decade old that look absolutely fine. Maybe some pockets of air that I can't really explain. I just try not to handle any of my sets by those parts that have stickers. I think that the oils in your fingers probably do more damage than anything.

[Enilder]

I actually scan the stickers at 300 DPI and save them as a TIFF file. I use a file naming system of XXXX-set_name.tiff where XXXX is the set number.

I then print the stickers on Avery whole sheet clear sticker paper. I use an HP photo printer at the highest quality setting. The reproduction stickers look pretty good. There is a problem when the sticker contains a lot of white. Most ink jet printers print using a variety of tri-color ink cartridges and cannot print the color "white". So white areas on the sticker end up being clear when printed on transparent sticker paper.

But this allows me to save the original stickers and print new ones when needed.

-- Bryan

sorry to bump the old thread but is there a particular reason why you use TIFF instead of JPEG?

[Diamondback]

I've actually thought about scanning the stickers, printing them on decal-film (note: won't work with white colors) and applying the waterslide decals with a clearcoat sealer--then digitally altering the scan to create a "template" for masking the white areas and spraying white paint where necessary, again with a clearcoat.

I haven't done this yet, but since I now have a decent scanner I might...

[AndyC]

sorry to bump the old thread but is there a particular reason why you use TIFF instead of JPEG?

TIFF is a lossless compression, so it will maintain the maximum quality possible. JPEG is lossy and designed to produce smaller files when dealing with photographs. The losses are usually impercetible for photographic images but often very noticable when dealing with images that have a small number of colours with very well defined straight lines. Which is exactly what Lego stickers tend to be.

[j3tang]

I've had an endless array of issues with stickers as well. For instance, look at these heartbreaking pictures of my Williams F-1 Racer:

This happened within a couple of months. It is easy to recommend just getting another sticker sheet, but for a set like this the stickers alone can be $75. Blue and white seem to be the worst, as you can see. The white stickers on my UCS Blockade Runner have completely disintegrated. My 1:8 F-1 Ferrari is peeling too, but only the white. The red seems OK. On sets like this Williams racer, the stickers are a huge part of the look of the model and now it just looks awful.

I have sets that are 30 years old with stickers which are fine. The crappiness seems limited to a few years in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Sets from this era with black stickers seem to have no problem.

The real oddity is that I store my LEGO in a room with no outside light, so UV should really not be an issue. Yet the issue is clearly related to light because I found that the side which faced the wall looked much better.

You can bet that if I ever get my hands on another sticker sheet for the Williams car, I will be putting a clear coat of polyurethane on it. I've considered making my own set of stickers by tracing the original in a vector graphics program, but so far I have not had time.

I am in the exact same predicament with my beloved Williams F1 racer :(

And coincidentally, because I've got no where to display it because of its size, I leave it in a shelf inside my closet. There's definitely no UV getting to it at all.

Eric,

Their is a decent quality .JPG of the sticker sheet for this set at http://www.hccamsterdam.nl/brickfactory/stikkers/index.htm.

It may not be as good as the original, but it would be better than the current ones. It's a shame a beautiful set like that was ruined by such poor quality stickers.

Thanks for the tip for the sticker sheet!

I actually scan the stickers at 300 DPI and save them as a TIFF file. I use a file naming system of XXXX-set_name.tiff where XXXX is the set number.

I then print the stickers on Avery whole sheet clear sticker paper. I use an HP photo printer at the highest quality setting. The reproduction stickers look pretty good. There is a problem when the sticker contains a lot of white. Most ink jet printers print using a variety of tri-color ink cartridges and cannot print the color "white". So white areas on the sticker end up being clear when printed on transparent sticker paper.

But this allows me to save the original stickers and print new ones when needed.

-- Bryan

wow .. anal retentive ........... and I like that!

I'm going to have to start doing that too. Aside from the Williams F1 racer above, I've got a few other technic sets which are giving me problems. The stickers that are applied to the curved plates start to peel the quickest.

Edited January 11, 2010 by j3tang

[Shompis]

clear coat is what I have used on models and rc cars. I have rc car that is over 10 year old and and the stickers are in excellent condition and blend very well with the body of the car thanks to clear coating. It is the Tamiya clear coat spray and can also be bought in small bottles and is made for abs plastic foremost.