Since our local print shops and all office supply stores have had some very bad and expensive experiences with printing decals and other off beat items for customers, they have decided that they will no longer do any decal printing on their laser copiers. So, I had to adapt or die. We had purchased an HP PSC 1210v color inkjet printer for my wife to make color copies of our pictures so I decided to practice making decals on that before I spent big bucks on a laser printer. Glad I did. I purchased a few sheets of Micro Mark laser decal paper and their fixative and gave it a try. Wow, did that work better than expected. This printer will scan or copy onto decal paper with no problem, and I am learning how to manipulate scanned pictures so that I am now able to duplicate just about anything I want.
So, seeing this would work, I decided to do some experimentation with two other decal papers; Micro Mark laser paper and Testors new decal paper. I loved making decals with laser decal sheets because there was no need to overcoat with a fixative. Not being a fan of fixatives because of bad experiences in the past with them turning yellow, I decided to try two other methods of sealing decals I have had good luck with along with the two decal papers. There was a clear, unexpected, winner.
Here is what was used in the experiments:
Paper:
Micro Mark clear and white inkjet paper
Testors clear and white inkjet paper
Micro Mark clear and white laser paper
Fixatives:
Micro Mark fixative (6 oz. can of Krylon crystal clear, that’s what they sent)
Testors Spray Fixative (suspect it is Krylon, smells, looks, and acts the
same)
Microscale Liquid Decal Film
Future Floor Wax
Results:
Micro Mark laser paper- do not use under any circumstances- print bleeds
and will not stay, any fixative only makes it worse.
Micro Mark clear and white papers- excellent results using Krylon clear, use
2 light coats. It did not like Microscale or Future.
Testors clear and white- surprise!, this was the best. Will take Krylon,
Testors, Microscale, and Future as a fixative with no adverse
results. One heavy coat will work, but found it best to put two
lighter coats instead.
Both Micro and Testors decal paper go on beautifully, lay well, most times do not really need setting solution. I exclusively use Future as an undercoat, “setting solution”, and overcoat and they both work great with Future. I have made letters with font size down below 2 and they printed clear and very readable. The only fault I can find is my printer tends to print one shade lighter than the original on some things and whites and yellows applied over black or dark blue tend to be not opaque. I think this is the way the printer puts the ink on the paper and is not the paper’s fault.
The Testors paper comes in 5 ½ x 8 ½ sheets, or ½ sheets, Micro comes in 8 ½ x 11, full sheets. If you compare the Micro 5 sheets package plus postage versus the Testors 6 half sheet package, the cost is a wash. If you bought Micro’s 25 sheet package, it gets considerably cheaper. But, the convenience of picking up the Testors at the local Hobby Lobby and its advantages with various fixatives makes it my top choice.
So, hope this helps you out with your decaling projects, I know it really expanded my ability to make decals. Now, does anyone want to by some laser decal paper, cheap?