What printer is best for homemade decals??

Epson photo printers are usually very good,as are the HP Inkjet printers. They happen to be the most "miserly" on ink when printing, which keeps from causing ink runs. Before running out to buy a new printer, try checking the heads on your Epson. Clean the contacts and print nozzles with a q-tip and denatured alcohol, let dry, then try printing again. Alot of the blotching you see may be due to residual ink on the cartridge heads.

demono69

I recently bought an HP pcs 2110 xi for it's all in one capabilities. It uses the cartridges. Would it be any good for decals? Computers and I are not on the same page!

I have an older Epson Stylus. Here''s a coujple of things I've found that can cause the problems you describe.

The decal paper is thicker than regular paper. This can cause the print heads to drag across the paper. There should be an adjustment lever for thicker paper. Mine is under the cover.

The printer may be applying more ink than the decal paper can absorbe. Check the decal instructions and your paper settings. Selecting "gloss photo" paper may cause the ink to blotch and run.

Be sure to use a sealer too. Krylon makes one. Ink jet printer ink isn't water proof.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

I've used a very basic HP 825 and have had good results. The smaller the decal, the harder it is to keep the colors and detail from running together. I'd recommend letting the paper dry for about 12 hours before coating it with Microscale liquid decal film. The decal film also goes on best when airbrushed as opposed to brushing it on. When I brushed it, it smeared the decal. When airbrushing, do a few light coats, let it dry and then give it another heavier coat.

I used an HP 810 on Vitacal's white decal sheets and was really dissapointed. The ink NEVER dried. I called the company and they were clueless. I had better luck with Epson printers

How about a color laser printer or an ink sublimation printer?

Mike

Okay, first you need the right paper. Inkjet ink, as you found, beads up on regular decal paper. Micro Mark (www.micromark.com) sells inkjet decals paper that takes the ink just fine. You then have to spray a fixative coat (they sell that too) to seal the water-based inkjet ink so it won't run off when you dunk it. You have to remember that inkjet ink is transparent, so it'll only look right on a white or light gray model.

The best home printer for decals, hands down, is the Alps 5000. This is the printer JTGraphics, Thomas Models, Tango Papa and other garage companies use. It prints from opaque wax ribbons, including white and metallic gold and silver, on lazer decal paper. Unfortunately it's out of production, so ebay is your only source.

Having your artwork xeroxed onto blank paper at a Kinkos or something is a decent option. Be careful, as color lazer toner tends to flake off decal paper if you rub it or bend it. Again, there's no way to do white, and the colors are mostly transparent. Also, I could never get the printed colors to match my screen colors when I went to a service beureau.

Hey John P - do you know if the refills are still available for that ALPS printer?

You can always take your images on a disk to Office Max and have them print it on the paper for you. They have a much better printer than I do.

James Simmons
Lcpl, US Marine Corps

In my view the only printer who ensures the proper printing of decals is the ALPS/OKI. They can print white, siver, gold, metallic colours and, of courese standard colours. ALPS has discontinued all of its printers and new MD 1300 can now be found only in Australia. The only other chance to have an Alps is to buy a second hand one. Oki took over the Alps product range but the DP 5000 (the same as Alps MD 5000) has been discontinued and as far as I know there are Oki stockists in Europe who still have a few. Is still in production the DP 7000 that is A3 capable and it only works under Mac OS. The laser printing it's ok as far as you don't need white (or you have to use white decal paper that complicates your life quite a lot if the shapes of the decals are round or complex). In my view the inkjet decal paper (not the printers) has not reached the quality standard required to print good quality decals.
Just a quick note about the software: a vector graphics package is highly reccomended to create your project because you can set the exact dimensions for every single object and you can resize (enlarging or shrinking) your objects without any quality loss.
Ciao

I second everything evryone has said about the Alps, owning an MD2010, MD1300 and MD5000. You can still get new printers from a supplier in Oz (Go to the Alpsdecal group at Yahoogroups and pop the question, the supplier will answer), and the last time I looked, the OKI DP5000 was still available from Hofax in the Netherlands (www.hofax.nl). Ink carts are still available for these printers.

Beware of buying one from ebay, the 5000 is prone to "banding", where a head element burns out, effect much the same as a blocked nozzle on an inkjet. The best allrounder is the 1300, as it prints in normal wax mode, and you can print continuous tone photographs in dye sub mode (this does not work for decals though). run in VPhoto mode, the 5000 has the best resolution of the lot.

You may think this sounds crazy but, years age I painted and decaled some custom NASCAR 1/64 diecast. Ireduced the 1/25 scale decals down to 1/64 at Kinkos, then layered the decals on 2 or 3 thicknesses. This made up for the transparency of the lazer copier. It worked like a dream.