Having trouble making my own decals

Hey Frank,

this is just a shot in the dark, but does the printer need to be set to glossy photo paper to print decals?

The black is probably working fine because your printer has a black cartridge.  Grey has to be made from a combination of the other colors.  If the paper type isn't set correctly, it may not know how to adjust the ink dispersion - which is why it works ok on regular paper, but not the decal paper.

-Fred

 

Hmmm your trodding into some deep dark realm. Setting your printer to the best quality for printing will give you the most ink for the print. The photo editor can play a role as well. Sometimes it displays a small picture very large or visa versa. Too big and the reduction can be warped. To small and the stretched pic can give you a fuzziness or blotchy look. Before I print any decal I take the picture and do different resizing and settings saving each pic individually as a jpeg. I then test print the different pics in several different sizes on plain old paper. This gives you an idea on quality and color as it can look very different when printed. I actually use power point to import all the pics on one page and resizing them is as easy as grabbing a corner with your mouse icon and pushing or pulling the image as you would any viewing window on the computer. The powerpoint slide is also set up as the size of a sheet of regular paper so it gives a good reference to how large or small you are making it and exactly where the printer will print it on the paper when you add the actual decal paper. If it prints clearly on white paper it should do the same for the decal paper. The clear decal paper is tricky. Very translucent and would take a couple passes through the printer to get enough ink to make worth while for most detailed pics. You have to test that as well to ensure you can print the image on exactly the same spot multiple times so as not to get an offset image. It can be done with patience an practice even on an older inkjet printer. This method may help fill in your letters as well. Now when you spray on the carrier film be patient. it is very thin and may take a couple or 12 coats to get a useable decal. Spraying it on too thick instead of using several coats drying completely in between can cause the image to blur and distort as it thins the ink. Worse case scenario is if you get the right size you may be able to print the image and create a stencil or mask on card stock and just paint them on. I am going through similar woes trying to make those big and small red Halifax codes. If you got any tips please pass them on as well.

Fred- Great idea!  I tried that, and also a few other settings.  Unfortunately, I am getting the same results.  Thousands of little red and aqua dots.  Even tried printing it in greyscale to see if that helped, but the same results were obtained. 

Aaron- Yeah, this is my first attempt at it and so far I have managed to get the image (just three gray code letters) the size and look that I want, just can't get my printer dialed in.  I have used most of a sheet of white and clear decal film, and am almost out.  I may have to buy more and keep on struggling. 

I tried printing them out and cutting them into tape, frisket film, etc but couldn't get the letters straight enough for my taste.  Not quite sure what to do at this point, perhaps HP could add a setting to their printers called "Decal paper printing for the rank amateur".  That would REALLY help!

   That is really odd. Even at the default settings you shouldn't get aqua dots. My experience is if it prints on white paper it does the same on decal paper. If your getting good gray letters on normal paper then I don't get the misprint. If your not running out of ink the only other thing that comes to mind is perhaps the color editing done by the photo program just isn't tranalating to the printer. If it prints ok on regular paper though it has to be the decal paper. I wonder if you sprayed a thin coat of carrier film 1st if the ink would stick better. I am not sure but let me know if you figure it out.

 Have you tried using the actual decal maker software? Maybe just trouble shooting out loud.

No, but I just tried using the Sure Thing Decal Maker software to see if that helped.  Unfortunately, the same thing.  Thousands of tiny red and aqua dots.

 Well how bizarre, If you like you could send me the picture you are trying to print. If it works for me perhaps we could narrow it down. My e-mail is sfcmac65@yahoo.com

Aaron,

Thank you very much for your help, I am sending you the image right now.

Hopefully, it prints in the proper size.  Each letter should be about 13mm high.  Thanks again!

Frank, if you can't find a solution, feel free to send me the file, too (mbuchler@sbcglobal.net). I like to tinker, and maybe I could also try running it out my color laser, and see what happens.

Mark-

Thank you very much for that offer!  Aaron was kind enough to print out some for me, and is sending them my way today.  If for some reason they don't work out, I may send the file to you.  Thanks again, that is very generous of you!

 Ok Frank to your creations to the post early this AM. They should be heading north to a more hospitable climate. Holler if they make it there ok. I am guessing on Monday? Good luck with them!

Outstanding!  Thanks again Aaron, I owe you big time for this one.

Daywalker-

I share your frustration as I have been having a difficult time whenever I delve into trying to print my own decals.

Somehow I think a lot of the inkjet printers just do not work well with the decal paper and frankly I am not that thrilled with the Testors decal paper.

My own decals are always far inferior to the ones that come with the kit.  Also the Testors white decals are real thin and not easy to work with.

I keep searching for a solution.  Let me know if anyone has an idea on decal paper, etc. 

 

 

 I have been pulling my hair out making my own lately as well. The white is very thin and flimsy. It can tear easily and loves to fold over on itself. It is also touch to get off the paper at times. Yesterday I made a set and patiently sprayed over a dozen coats of the bonder over it letting it completely dry between coats. They are now very glossy and resemble the older monogram decals. After I sleep I'll try them out and see if it makes a difference. I'll let you know but I need a nap 1st.

 Ok woke up and gave them a whirl. The result was not as improved as I had hoped. It added some thickness (not a lot) but enough to keep them from folding over themselves as easily. Removal from the paper was still hit and miss.  Most behaved like bare metel foil and the thin decal clings to the paper for dear life until you can get a corner to pop up and then peel it back. I only got one out of eight to slide off the usual way.  The other major issue was they are very translucent. You actually need a white backing or multiple decals of the same image to layre atop each other to get enough color to become opec.  They do adhere well but I have been to chicken to try solvaset on them as they are delicate and thin enough to conform with a push of a cotton cloth. The end result is acceptable but it takes a lot of patience and practice to get there. I haven't tried any other brand of waterslide paper. (Haven't seen any) The idea is great just needs to be a little more user friendly.

The problem with making your own decals is that unless you are printing white, or black, they come out clear.  Companies that sell decals use printers taht print white, most printers dont print white.  What they do is print the decal white, then print over the white with the color.  Your best bet, if you are making your own, is to contact someone who prints custom decals and sells them and see if they will print the ones you designed for you

Hi there

Try   www.parkes682decals.piczo.com

Paul

Hi Gang,

I don't know if this will help anything, but recently I had occasion to attempt to build a bonus kit I got from a guy that sent it along because I bought 10 1/35 kits from him on EBay. Well I noticed the box art is an exact knock off or the Tamiya kit in 1/35th. This kit however is 1/72 scale, it is an M60A1 W/ reactive armor. Well to my chagrin, upon opening the box, there was no reactive armor and no decals. I wanted to try a 1/72 model so I decided it can be an M60A1(plain wrap), but no decals!? In 1/72 I am hard pressed to paint them on sooooo...... ! I own a Kodak all in one 5500 printer. I worked for Lockheed as an engineer for 23 years and worked for 6 years in the Calcomp div. designing printers / plotters. I took the decal sheet out of my Tamiya 1/35 kit and placed it on two sheets of white paper ( 94 lumens) and 1/72 is approx.. 1/2 the 1/35 scale, so I set it to reduce by 50% and printed them on semi-gloss photo paper, ( I don't have any decal paper at the house yet), well they came out perfect! I brought them into photo shop and removed the light blue color copied ( because of the light blue carrier paper the decals were mounted on originally) and then reprinted again on photo paper and viola an exact match in approx.. 1/72 scale! I can't speak to the decal paper yet, but I do know one thing. Printers like an HP use a dye based ink with an isopar type carrier ( isopar being a long chain polymer, such as kerosene for example) or even an alcohol or water based carrier to make the ink slurry that is deposited on the paper when the ink is boiled by the print head causing a bubble (or dot) to be deposited. A more severe problem this type of ink exhibits is it is basically a dye and therefore is very much influenced bye the substrate it is sprayed on, i.e. will it be absorbed or will it float as it would on say a piece of glass or even a lightly plastic coated (I'm guessing on this part) piece of decal printing paper. With a dye based ink subsequent layers are actually partly overlaying and partly dyeing the dye already laid down and as we know overlaying of the basic colors is what creates all of the different shades and hues we all know and love.
The reason I own a Kodak copier is because it uses a pigment based ink. No matter what it is deposited on pigment is pigment it is made from pulverized minerals, not crushed berries and the like. In general they will not stain each other, they overlay very evenly and the opacity is for the most part a non-problem, such as blue dye looking aqua, or the red looking orange. Most of this is caused by substrate characteristics, such as paper quality, absorption rate, whiteness, coatings, etc. etc. For instance many papers have a certain amount of paraffin wax in them to help hold the fibers together. Which side of the paper you actually print on makes a difference, most packages of descent paper actually have an arrow or such telling you what side to print on ( its the smooth side) there is a smooth side and a wire side. The wire side is the side that wire brushes of a sort contact to move the newly created yet still wet paper along in the roller conveyor machine and the smooth side is the side that is against the smooth rollers during this process. You can test this by placing a piece of paper in some water it will curl up. It curls toward the smooth side as the wire side is more porous and absorbs more water and expands like a sponge forcing the paper to curl inward towards the smooth side.
My whole reason for chiming in is to say that working with dye based inks and papers (especially non absorbing decal types) will almost always be the cause of unpredictable results, unless you control the paper (always exactly the same, date and lot etc.) temp., humidity, even the dye lot of the ink used in the cartridges will have an effect. However you will always eliminate at least 50% of the problems with a pigment based ink and therefore yield a more repeatable result. I would recommend that if you need a certain decal and may need it more that once. Once you do yield good results make a bunch of copies for future use and try a pigment based printer/ ink. I assure you this will eliminate a lot of headaches! I any of you would like to know more I would be glad to discuss it there are wax based layered type inks, thermal types and many different type papers. My father was a printer/ lithographer for all his life and later sold inks to major printers, I guess you could say that if you cut me I'd bleed ink! Hope some of this helps! Let me know! Sorry for the long winded speech.

Your Fellow Modeler,

Newarmorman

The problem you are experiencing is called pixelation. Inikjet printers spray small dots (bubbles) of ink onto the paper. printer paper is formulated such that these dots bleed out and blend together to form the color you are looking for. Decal paper does not allow for this bleed to happen as well so the dots appear as dots.

Grey, or is it gray, is one of the hardest colors to print. In fact I don't even bother to try them on my alps. The reason for this is the color is a light shade of black. since the printers can not dilute the black (no white ink to do so with) it uses a formulation of the Cyan Magenta and Yellow to formulate a faximily of the color you are looking for. since printing 100% of all three colors will give you black it stands to reason of you (the printer actually) prints 50% of each of the three colors you will get grey. If the inkjet paper can not allow the proper bleed of the colors you get the pixelation

Answer to all these posts. Kinko's and aviod testors paper.