Painted brake calipers & Aston decals
 

Hi all,

Someone had a post recently about painting brake calipers and "Aston Martin" caliper decals. I've been meaning to post about this topic for a while now (almost a year) but never got around to it. Although I could have put all this in the other thread, I thought I'd start a new thread so I can more easily find the information it contains later (after I've forgotten this info!). I apologize in advance for the long-winded post.

I have a titanium silver '07 Vantage with clear tail lights. The car originally had black brake calipers with white lettering so the car was largely monochromatic. I decided I wanted to add a little flair by painting the brake calipers red. Up to this point, I thought the letters on the brake calipers were decals and that it would be easy to replace them once the painting was done. The shop that was doing the painting and other work on the car informed me, however, that the lettering appeared to be painted on (which it was). I told them to go ahead and paint over the lettering under the assumption that it would be easy to source decals that match the original painted letters.

Unfortunately, I was wrong about the decals. I ended up spending many weeks, months even, trying to find good decals. I contacted just about every decal shop on the Internet and ordered many sets of decals. The decals from these shops were invariably one or more of the wrong font, the wrong size, the wrong proportions (height to width), unevenly spaced, crooked, distorted, or otherwise unacceptable. To add insult to injury (or is it the other way around?), a lot of these decal sets were expensive for what they were.

After a long search I finally found one decal shop, Tuner Decals (at tunerdecals.com), that could perfectly match the original lettering. The guy at Tuner whom I dealt with told me that the name of the font, or the font that most closely approximates the Aston font, is the Optima font. He also shared with me that the reason most shops have problems with the Aston lettering is that their equipment cannot reproduce really small, fine lettering as that used by Aston Martin. Regardless, in addition to matching the font, Tuner Decals sold me the set of four decals (one for each wheel) for only $8 shipped!

Below are a couple of shots of the decals for reference. The calipers were a bit dirty, so I just wiped them with my finger before snapping the pics. As you can see, I ended up going with white lettering instead of the black lettering that Aston puts on the red calipers because the white lettering pops more. Tuner Decals can do the decals in black too though. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. Although I was a bit concerned about the durability of the decals, I haven't had any problems so far. So, all in all, no regrets.

Cheers!

Nice post! Good information to have for the future.

So if I go to Tuner Decals site, and select "Custom Lettering" can you tell me which Row and Column the Aston-Martin Font is on? Or was this a speical "optima" font they selected for you?
Thanks, for the great site and very reasonable prices.

What I did was email them a jpeg if the Aston Martin logo, which has the same font. Just google "Aston Martin logo" and you can copy/paste to an email. You might also mention the Optima font and that they have made these decals before for another customer. Other than that, all they should need is the length of the decal, which I think was approximately 4 inches long to replicate the original. The height of the decal will automatically come out right due to the fixed aspect ratio of the font.

If you want to really replicate the original, you'll want to be careful of the orientation of the decals on the calipers. I can't remember now, but I think the apex of the "A" in "Aston" always faces the front of the car.

Good luck.

I'm the guy who started the other post about the calipers. Thanks so much for that great info. It will certainly come in handy. This is what I love about forums. Sharing information that would otherwise take months to figure out yourself. ;) Who painted the calipers red for you?

A local shop, Butler Tire.

Is there anyway to touch up the calipers? Mine are red and have a couple of chips.

I assume so, as long as you match the color and use a high-temperature paint. Krylon from Home Depot won't do. :D

Any suggestions on products?

Sorry, no idea. I think they make paint intended for caliper use, but I'm not certain.

Thanks for the info. Good post.

Did you apply any type of high heat clear coat on top of decals?

I have the same decals on mine, without clear over it. I have driven my car on spirited runs to where the tires are all greasy and the abs comes on as soon as I hit the brakes, the decals are still a-okay

Instead of a printed sticker, I wonder if they can make a stencil with the letters cut out of the plastic. It would be a perfect way to airbrush the letters onto the caliper.

My buddy makes the decals for Butler. Small world.
CATTMAN