Reconstructing a 1956 Oak Premier Card/Gumball Machine Decal

[UKCardGuy]

I recently picked up a 1956 Oak Premier Card vending machine. It's in really nice condition but the decal on the machine has had a bit of wear.

So, being a tinkerer, I've been working to recreate a replacement decal. My plan is to keep the original glass and decal and store it safely but recreate the decal and apply it to a replacement glass piece. Then I can display the machine with the new glass and decal but still retain the original should I ever come to sell it.

I wanted to share my progress. It's taken a while to perfect my skills in Photoshop. But so far, it's coming along nicely.

Step 1: I scanned the original and imported it into Photoshop.
Step 2: I checked that the image was the same size as the original and had a resolution of 600dpi.
Steps 3-1000: I recolored the scanned image, filling in the missing bits. The hardest part was the letters. I had to manually recreate these. The original scan didn't work great when they were zoomed in so I became a bit of an expert with the Photoshop Curvature Pen Tool.

My first attempt wasn't bad but I needed to thicken up the lines. I think attempt 2 looks pretty darn good. When I print these on waterslide decal paper the image looks good against a light surface but against a dark surface (or when it's in the machine the colors don't show up great). You can see this from the photos below - you'll see that the grain on my desk, doesn't show through the yellow on the original decal but it does on my attempts.

I also noticed that the red on my 1st 2 attempts wasn't red enough. I've fixed this in my 3rd version.

I've also found out that professional printers apply a white undercoat to the areas where color are printed. That makes them stand out more.

I found a printing house on-line where they do this technique. I should receive my decal back from them next week. I'll post the results.

Let me know you're thoughts and if you have any tips, I'll be happy to have those too.