Aborted carbon numberplate effort

Had a go at making my own numberplate yesterday. Cut a piece of 3mm carbon to the right size and then cut out the numbers and letters from a sheet of self adhesive reflective yellow sheet. Everything was going fine until I tried to stick the sheet onto the carbon. Had three attempts but I can't get the finish to be good enough to be happy. It's like applying large vinyl graphic panels but much harder. The problem is small bubbles of air caught between the layers as they go down but unlike graphics it's not easy to get rid of them. Also the reflective material is a weird thing - like it has a layer of soft particles trapped between thin sheets of transparent material and the surface damages very easily. Not happy with the finish so unless someone, (Millar?? - you are a talented man....... ) has some good suggestions about how to overcome this I'm giving up and reverting to my old numberplate.

Here it is looking OK from a distance......


But up close it's just not good enough....

Put soapy water on the plate then put the yellow vinyl on all you need is a bit of plastic to run over the yellow vinyl that will squeeze all the water and air bubbles out
job done

hat he said... That's how I applied all my decals to the hypermotard

Tried that. Doesn't work in this case. Adhesive and material is very different.

You need to make it with thicker vinyl (plus the soapy water).