What Products are Needed in the A-body world?

curleysracecars said

Big hook, I have the Valiant emblems on my '71 Valiant. The emblem itself looks to have a raised edge around it...is this true? Mine also are all bleached out. My thoughts however, are what about a sticker that would be placed inside the "lip" on the emblem and replicate the old font and color? Would this be something that would work for you guys? I havnt seen a good one to be able to compare to what it would look like with a sticker placed on the emblem. If this would work, please let me know. This could be a pretty cheap fix to a seemingly common problem.

Click to expand...

CRC, the border is a raised edge or 'lip' if you will. I've thought about a decal die cut to size and placed within the lip. It would not lay completely flat though because The 'VALIANT' letters are raised or embossed creating an uneven surface. Studying the emblem, it originally appears that maybe the black portion was pad printed which is a method of imprinting a substrate with an irregular surface. In this case, it's the embossed Valiant letters that remain unprinted with ink. That is followed by a thin plastic sheet over the entire area which is either affixed by adhesive or just vacuum applied.

The fading seems to occur because either the ink is too thin which in turn will fade just from natural UV light or water and air migrate behind the final seal which also accelerates fading. For such a simple emblem, it seems to be more complicated than just applying a decal (but I wish it was that simple).