What are water slide decals?

Before the pressure-sensitive plastic stickers were invented (almost in the 1950s), all stickers made using water slide stickers.

The Water Slide Sticker is manufactured by printing the graphic you want to display on the product or as a promotional image on release paper. The sliding water stickers were printed using silk screen printing method (screen printing).

Screen printing is a very ancient type of printing that was invented in China during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD). This type of printing was called silk printing, because the mesh used to press the ink was made of silk. The term silk has not been used since the 1960s. Synthetic yarns are now commonly used in the screen printing process; the most popular general purpose net is made of polyester. Special nylon and stainless steel mesh materials are available to the screen printer.

Screen printing uses a screen-like polyester mesh and hence the term "screen printing", which is coated with a reactive emulsion of images. When this emulsion is exposed to light, it leaves a stencil imprint for the drawing to be printed, each color to be printed has its own screen.

Returning to the question in question, water car truck decalsstickers are printed on the release paper one color at a time, because each color must dry in the air before printing the next color. The substrate on which the ink is printed is waterproof paper containing a layer of water-soluble adhesive. When the final adhesive is immersed in water, the adhesive on the waterproof paper is pasted from the paper leaving a sticker trapped between the water-soluble adhesive and the final transparent ink coating on the surface of the printed stickers.

The water slide label does not have a substrate to be printed on. The editing liner or waterproof paper is just a temporary transmission of the poster image. The water slide (also known as a water transfer sticker) has been moved to a substrate for the image to stick to.

Before the invention of plastics and adhesives, all badges were water transfer stickers, whether for promotion, brand products, and danger and warning badges.