Transparent image on a curved surface

[steelframe]

Here's a challenge that came at me the other day. I needed to draw a screen printed logo on a round stainless steel trashcan. I've used a PNG with a transparent background before to place signs on windows, but when I project as a texture to a curve the background disappears. I ended up projecting to a flat stainless background and the projecting to the curve which worked in Sketchup but when rendered just looses all the texture and renders (VRay) as plain grey.I cannot control the material as a texture, it's now just a photo.
Anybody else have this problem and fixed it?
Thanks

[TIG]

If you view in Monochrome mode are you sure the material is applied onto a 'front'.
If your Style has a distinctively back-face color versus front-face then you'll see it clearly.
Most renderers do not render back-faces, even when they have a material...

PS: Posting a simple example SKP would also help us help you...