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Making Decals

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  • Member since
    February 2006
Making Decals
Posted by CH53CrewChief on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 12:59 AM

The  ALPS printer keeps showing up when I google articles on making decals. I also read that Alps is not making printers any longer. I am building models of my old helos and need to produce squadron and tail number decals in white and black. I also need to get Bu. Numbers in 1/72nd scale...itty bitty....down to a  lot less than what Word lets you do. What's a good printer for none-ink jet type decals...what is the paper of choice...and what is the software of choice for making decals....Photoshop, etc??

Thanks,

RHE         

  • Member since
    March 2005
  • From: West Virginia, USA
Posted by mfsob on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 8:40 AM

The reason Alps printers keep showing up in decal discusssions is because they are the ONLY ones that can print white images. If you want white letters and numbers, you're going to have to either use dry transfers or find the appropriate decal sheets in that scale with the letters and numbers that you need, which should not be too big of an obstacle. One source is squadron.com.

As for getting the type small enough, Word will go down to 1 point, which is pretty darn small. On the Formatting toolbar, right click on the font size, with is to the right of the font style you're using, enter 1 and type your text ... I just did that on my laser printer at work, and all I can say is, at that size, I don't know if I'd bother because no one is going to be able to read it.

  • Member since
    February 2006
Posted by CH53CrewChief on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 11:13 PM

MFSOB,

OK, I'm a dope. 20 years with Word, and I thought I was stuck with the font sizes offered in the drop down. Just being able to get down to 5 - 7 pts for 1/72 bu numbers is great. Thank you for taking the time. Huge help. I am using a font style of USN/USMC font called Long Beach USN from a company named tclai and sold through Kagi. It's pretty good. 

I've tried the Ink Jet paper from Bare Metal...but I'm getting some beading with colors in very small areas. I am using an old Epson color 760 (I said it was old!). Do you have a suggestion for a good printer for making decals. I think I'm going to bag the ink jet and buy a laser.

Thanks a million for you help,

Rich Erickson

  • Member since
    March 2005
  • From: West Virginia, USA
Posted by mfsob on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 7:44 AM

Nahhh, you're not a dope, I've just already made all the stupid mistakes for you Big Smile [:D]

If you want crisp-looking decals, then laser is the way to go, but unless you're rich, you're going to be stuck with black images only because color laser printers are still pretty expensive. For color inkjets, try experimenting with the printer settings - some have a "photo" or "presentation" setting that will lay down a thicker layer of ink. Any newer inkjet printer will do a decent job, I'm happy with the results I get from my HP printer/scanner, even though I never did solve the translucent yellow decal problem.

You also need to do a search of the forum archives for decal paper and copy shops. There were extensive discussions in the past about which quick copy places would allow you to use your decal paper in their color laser copiers and the like.

 

 

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: White Mountains, NH
Posted by jhande on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 10:21 AM
Over the past 23 years I've been really happy with the quality of prints that my different Canon printers produce. I do a lot of graphics printing (photo's, CAD drawings and different color prints) even for clients and they are impressed.

Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro are excellent programs. If you want to scale art work that you create without losing crisp details, get a program that specializes in Vector graphics. A few cheap ones that come to mind are Flash and Fireworks, but there are plenty of others.



-- Jim --
"Put the pedal down & shake the ground!"

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Friday, February 17, 2006 1:55 AM

Dear Sir,

           My name is Barney Kable and I have several ALPS printer and do some custom decal printing for people. I use Deneba's Canvas  for all my vector graphics and the print quality is great. I print out all my stencil warnings and serial # well into 1/144 scale and have designed a set of decals for a F-14 Tomcat in  1/350 scale without a problem. If you would like info about my service please feel free to contact me at my email address.

Barney Kable

bhkable@earthlink.net

  • Member since
    July 2013
Posted by DURR on Thursday, February 23, 2006 10:26 PM

isn't it always the way

when someone has the perfect way to do something some always finds a way to screw it up

darn those alps peopleBanged Head [banghead]

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Friday, February 24, 2006 12:25 PM
You may also want to look into getting blank decal sheets that are preprinted in white. All you have to do is apply the black. I believe Walthers (a model railroad company) sells white decal paper.
  • Member since
    December 2004
  • From: 288921 E, 5659868 N UTMz12, NAD83
Posted by jboutin on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 3:07 PM

I printed off decals for a hurricane I was doing a while back.  I used testors clear and white decal paper.  The printer I have is an HP PSC 1315 colour all in one.  I think it did a pretty good job.  Take a look at my 1:48 hurricane, the squadron codes and the serial was done on the printer.

I also did a 1:72 beaufighter where I printed off the squadron codes and serials with my printer too.

 

JAY - fighting evil since 2:15pm, July 8,1976 -
  • Member since
    July 2013
Posted by DURR on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:56 PM
that beaufighter is Fantastic
  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Friday, March 3, 2006 9:26 PM
Has anyone tryed "Testers" decal program? I've been looking at it,but not much info.on the box. Comes with CD,and some decal paper,but what scale will it do,and what kind of quality?Question [?]  I'm open for ideas.
  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: NYC
Posted by kp80 on Saturday, March 4, 2006 6:51 PM

I bought the system few weeks ago and began to experiment a little bit.  I loaded the CD, and found that it doesn't contain much..  I was expecting a whole library of images, but you have to buy those extra from a web site.  But since the point is to make your own decals and design them, who cares.  You can make a decal from any word file, paint file, image file, photo, etc., so don't worry about the little that's on the CD.  When you run the testors software, you get a screen that is essentially the layout of the 5.5 x 8.5 decal sheet itself.  While you can create your decal text and images right in this software, I prefer to create the images and text in other programs, then copy and paste into the testors program screen, from where I adjust their final size, then print the decals.

Basically, I found the system to work, but had to try a few things different to get a good quality decal.  First, when printing, I found that if I tried to print a heavy black letter or object, the inkjet ink would crack as it dried.  I solved this problem by using a very dark gray instead of black.  I got a very sharp "almost black" image with no cracking.  Next, the fixative.  Just spray a few bursts of mist coats until you see its covered.  Then let it dry for a few hours.  I found my first decals were on the thick side, but that was because I had sprayed too much fixative.  I have a Canon S300 inkjet printer, and I made sure that I cleaned the area around the print head, which at first smeared the decal paper.  Once I cleaned it with alcohol, that problem was solved.  I also used a "fine" or "high" print setting.

There's an instruction sheet in the box, the CD, decal paper (white background and clear), and a small can of fixative.  I'm still experimenting and have not tried any small lettering yet, but I will be doing that soon enough.  So far, I've done only a 30 pt font and few paint images about 1 in x 2 in.

  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: Ireland
Posted by nick31 on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 4:07 AM

re making your decals small....what I do is this:

make your image as a bitmap (I use the standard MS Paint program). I usually make it nice and big - about the size of a quarter of the screen. When youre happy with it, copy it into MS Word.

Right click on the image in Word, and select "Format Picture", click on the "Size" tab, and you can now reduce the image by adjusting the % "Scale" setting. I make mostly 1/12th decals for bikes so they can be pretty small, but they reduce without any loss of clarity or detail.

 Works a treat.

While Im at it, instead of spending a huge amount on a colour lazer printer, why not bring your Word document on disk along to a local print shop. Its probably a hell of a lot cheaper. Im lucky - I have access to one at work ;)

 

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 8:26 PM
Same here, nick31! I too work in a print shop and have access to a great Epson plotter. I'm currently recreating the "Death From Above" B-17 noseart from a scan off the Axis & Allies ad I have. I've used our colour laser to create HO (1/87 scale) decals for my military items and it works great, but I am expecting our plotter to be immeasurably better! For that HO decal sheet, I sprayed a few coats of Tester's Dullcoat over it to seal them in. No runs, no distortion...works like a dream! I prefer to make my decals in Adobe Illustrator so I have solid colours and can resize with no degradation.
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