Decals

[mustang400]

Hello
I have often wondered if thier is a way to make your own decals maybe by printing them off via the pc , Has anyone else heard of any ideas , my idea is to eventually make a 67 pontiac Gto and i wanted to make some [SMC] decals if possible the idea came after watching wrecks to riches USA and thought i would make a nice touch

[Harley]

It is possible but the best non-pro printer to use is no longer available (Alps, or Oki in the UK). What made that so useful was that it could cope with white and gold decals, and was configured specifically to cope with decal inks.

I know folks have used other printers with varying degress of success (the biggest problem seems to be printing solid rather than transparent colours on the decals) but if you're starting from scratch a good graphics program will make life a lot easier as well.

Of course, if there are any decal gurus out there I do have one or two favours to ask!

[voyager]

You can print you own decals with your PC onto paper such as HERE. As Harley said, you can't print white and light colours don't go too well over dark. I used it for the decals on this...



I have recently 'found' THIS Anyone seen/used it?

[ptcruiser]

Hi Mustang
I've done the same as Voyager above (you may have seen my Top Bun Wallace & Gromit van in the IPMS Mag?) but as Harley says the start point for me was a graphics package I feel comfortable with (I use Serif Drawplus which is not that expensive).

White is the holy grail and there is a project on the go at the moment to produce a commercially available white inkjet ink. That said, you can print an image onto white decal paper if you have a white background.

I use a Canon iP4200 if it's of any help.

Rich

[Harley]

The DecalPro looks interesting but I've always had two reservations with dry decals:

- they're an absolute sod to apply on anything other than flat surfaces
- all the commercial ones I've tried in the past (Letraset etc) really don't like clear coating.

If they can crack those problems, sign me up!

[voyager]

My truck decals above were printed on clear decal paper. The images were downloaded from the internet and the lettering using the wordart in windows, all printed on an HP photo printer (6x4"). For the girls' foot, I printed another set on plain paper then cut her out and used it as a mask when I sprayed the orange so the white was left showing then I just lined up the decal with the gap when the paint was dry!