Protecting signature on seat cover

[goalc]

I hope someone can suggest something to help...

I was at the MotoGP at Silverstone, and thanks to my company I was lucky to get VIP hospitality with the Ducati team :biggrin:. Amongst various celebrities wandering in and out all day, Foggy was there and he signed my seat cover. So I now have a cool seat cover with his signature across it in a permanent pen, but I just know that it will fade and rub off over time if I leave it as it is.

Can anyone suggest the best way to protect it and stop the signature disappearing? I thought of spraying it with a clear lacquer but am not sure if that will work, or even putting some kind of clear film over it, but again Im not sure what's best.

Any advice will be much appreciated, as my seat cover has been sat in the house since then until I can figure out what to do and I want to get it back on the bike....

[Dirty]

Get another seat cover and use that. If you use the signed one it will fade and I doubt there is much to be done about that. Keep it for shows or special days :)

[Dukedesmo]

I'd be telling him not to scribble on my bike... :twak:

[Darren69]

Trace over it and then carefully replicate it on some other covers, then ebay £££! :)

[Nasher]

I'd agree with Dirty.

Permanent marker pen ink is highly unlikely to have any sort of decent UV stabiliser in it, so unless you put something with a strong UV filter over it, it will fade very quickly outside.

Best bet would be to get another cover and protect that one indoors as an investment.

Nasher.

[rbt1548]

A number of years ago I "painted" a couple of designs on leather jackets, after a while the paint cracked. The secret is to use shoe dye as it soaks in and is designed to flex.
Now!, I know the seat is likely to be vinyl, but the shoe dye was protected by a clear coating that you can get to protect shoes; you can probably still get it in the like of Clarks or shoe repair places, (nearly wrote cobblers, but try finding one of those!). You then could get a small brush and follow the signature, giving it a few coats.
I can't for the life of me remember what the stuff was called, but if I remember I'll post it.

[Mr Gazza]

I can't for the life of me remember what the stuff was called, but if I remember I'll post it.

....I think you may be thinking of Scotchguard?

But don't put anything on it. Do as the sensible folk have suggested and get another seat.

Just curious, what colour seat and what colour pen?... Any pictures?

[Dirty]

How dare you call me sensible!!!! :mand:

[Darren69]

By cover do you mean the plastic cowl?

[Nickj]

By cover do you mean the plastic cowl?

In which case a UV filtering lacquer would do it

[utopia]

I wouldn't bother doing anything at all to it.
It'll probably last for 2 or 3 yrs before it has faded or rubbed off too much.
After that you, or the next owner, might be happy enough that its not permanent.

I had my seat cowl signed by a couple of music heros of mine a few years ago.
It didn't really fade much at all (so some marker pens might be fairly uv stable....?) but most of it has rubbed off now..... although I still know that it was there.
And anyway, I've changed the colour scheme now and fitted a carbon cowl.

You could of course laquer over it, but then it can never be easily removed. And I guess that there's even a chance that the laquer will react with the ink.
Also, unless the cowl was cleaned and prepped for lacquer before it was signed, it would be hard to prep it now. Particularly, if the cowl has ever been waxed, you're probably not going to get lacquer to work.
But......I've recently used U-Pol no 1 uv-resistant, clear lacquer over carbon fibre, and while its still early days I'm very pleased with the immediate results.

Or maybe you could use one of those products that add a hard glaze over waxed paintwork......with a name like "dyna-glaze" or somesuch. That might be a halfway house measure which would protect it for a while without being too permanent (though I guess you could prolong it with regular applications, if you were gentle). I think some of those products might even claim some uv-protection. Again there's a risk of it reacting with the ink, but a product like that would be easy enough to test on a tiny patch, wheras it would be harder to test the lacquer.

It kinda depends whether you want to preserve its "added value" on the bike, or just for personal reasons.
If the latter then maybe it doesn't really matter that it fades away naturally.
I still consider my bike to have been signed by the guitarists from Little Feat, even though its now fitted with completely different bodywork.

[Fatal]

Not being a great foggy fan, I would get a cloth and some thinners and wipe the smudge off ;)

Alan H

[goalc]

By cover do you mean the plastic cowl?

Yes, I mean the red plastic cowl.

I have looked at getting a new cowl, but my bike is the anniversary edition and so far none of the dealers I have contacted to get a price for a replacement have been able to give me any indication of the cost as "it's not made anymore mate" :scratch:

[goalc]

I wouldn't bother doing anything at all to it.
It'll probably last for 2 or 3 yrs before it has faded or rubbed off too much.
After that you, or the next owner, might be happy enough that its not permanent.

I had my seat cowl signed by a couple of music heros of mine a few years ago.
It didn't really fade much at all (so some marker pens might be fairly uv stable....?) but most of it has rubbed off now..... although I still know that it was there.
And anyway, I've changed the colour scheme now and fitted a carbon cowl.

You could of course laquer over it, but then it can never be easily removed. And I guess that there's even a chance that the laquer will react with the ink.
Also, unless the cowl was cleaned and prepped for lacquer before it was signed, it would be hard to prep it now. Particularly, if the cowl has ever been waxed, you're probably not going to get lacquer to work.
But......I've recently used U-Pol no 1 uv-resistant, clear lacquer over carbon fibre, and while its still early days I'm very pleased with the immediate results.

Or maybe you could use one of those products that add a hard glaze over waxed paintwork......with a name like "dyna-glaze" or somesuch. That might be a halfway house measure which would protect it for a while without being too permanent (though I guess you could prolong it with regular applications, if you were gentle). I think some of those products might even claim some uv-protection. Again there's a risk of it reacting with the ink, but a product like that would be easy enough to test on a tiny patch, wheras it would be harder to test the lacquer.

It kinda depends whether you want to preserve its "added value" on the bike, or just for personal reasons.
If the latter then maybe it doesn't really matter that it fades away naturally.
I still consider my bike to have been signed by the guitarists from Little Feat, even though its now fitted with completely different bodywork.

Thanks for that. I just want it keeping for personal reasons, not for any monetary value. If I can't get another cowl I might just let it fade naturally - as you say, I haven't prepared the cowl at all even before he signed it, so it will probably react to whatever is out on anyway....

Maybe I need to buy a new 1200S and keep the EVO on show in my lounge :D