Applying those wacky Tamiya & Fujimi tire decals

[Ben_B]

Some Japanese companies, like Tamiya and Fujimi, like to give you tire logos as separate backwards decals. I've battled these things multiple times with varied success, and judging by the posts I've seen on other forums, I'm not the only one. There are a couple of videos on YouTube, but I didn't find them to be particularly helpful. I finally managed to get everything to work properly and photographed it to boot, so I thought I'd try to help others who might not be sure how these things work.

The decals are stuck to a thin sheet of paper that is sandwiched between two other sheets (couldn't get my cell phone to focus on this). I separated the three sheets before I started cutting the individual decals out because it's difficult to separate them and I didn't want to risk damaging anything. Having a larger piece to work with kept all of the bending and prying of the layers a safe distance from the decals themselves. Be careful not to touch the exposed decals once you've separated the layers of paper.

Next, cut the paper close to the decal and place it on the tire. 


"Paint" the paper with water, holding the paper in place. On one, I didn't hold the paper down and it tried to curl under itself. 


Carefully press the paper down onto the tire, being careful not to let it slip. You'll be able to tell when the paper is soaked all the way through because it turns almost transparent. 


After a minute or two, gently peel the paper off of the tire. The letters should stay stuck to the tire. If they don't, press the paper back down, apply more water, and wait another minute or two.



Press the decals down with a dry Q-tip to remove water and press the decal edges down. After everything has had time to dry, spray the sidewalls with clear coat to seal them. I use Microscale Clear Flat, because I'm not sure how the rubber would react to a non-acrylic paint.



Ben

[Joel_W]

Ben,
Thanks for the super helpful tutorial. For the 1st time it's starting to make some sense to me.

And don't worry about using Mat lacquer to seal the decals. Never had a problem yet. But I use as a decal base on the rubber tires, hand brushed on Pledge. Nothing will get through that stuff. I decal on top of it, then Dull coat as a sealer.

Joel

[Ben_B]

I should probably Future my tires before decals, too. Might help the decals stick better. Sometimes they won’t stay down on the rubber or vinyl.

Ben

[tatocorvette]

Never seen those before. That is weird for sure. Thanks for the clear tutorial.

[Joel_W]

Ben,
I do pre-gloss only because the rubber tires aren't solid nor or the smooth. I've had issues with silvering, and poor adhesion at times. Once I started to use Pledge, decaling tires was exactly the same as hard plastic. But you need to mount the tires on to the wheels 1st. Any pressure can crack a decal or even pop it off the rubber surface. The down side is mounting the tire/wheel to the suspension which usually takes a lot of pressure. I wear cotton gloves for this so at least my greasy finger tips don't wreck havoc to the decals.

Joel

[Doug Yuen]

!!!! Thank you so much! I never thought of separating all three sheets FIRST. This worked perfectly!!! I have destroyed so many Tamiya tire decals but this worked first time out. Thanks again!!!👍🏼

[Joel_W]

I've used these reverse Tamiya decals on tires several times and for the life of me can't understand the need for this wack-O process. Regular water side decals work exactly the same but are far easier to apply. The real issue is that way to many of the manufactures are too thick and that's a major cause of no matter what you do, they still look like decals.

joel

[Ben_B]

Doug, glad I could help!

Joel, yeah I still try to avoid those crazy things. They end up looking exactly like conventional decals when they’re done, for ten times the trouble to apply them. Fortunately, most of the aftermarket decals I’ve used lately have included tire decals. There are also several sheets available with different logos, too.

Ben

[Joel_W]

Ben,
Totally agree. My SK sheet for the Bimmer has them as well as the Nunu kit decals. I just make sure that I now save tire decals in a separate Ziploc baggie as I've started to for various other detail decals once I've used the main sheet for it's designated purpose.

joel