Possible solution to print-it-yourself white decals?

[OneEighthBit]

I was pondering the issue of trying to print your own white decals and the fact white toner/ink is basically non-existent except in specialist printers. I came up with this trick from watching something my missus does with her graphic design.

Basically there is stuff called "Toner Reactive Foil" which is a tiny sheet of colour foil, often metallic backed onto a clear sheet. Basically what you do is place it over a laser printed design, run it through a laminator and the combination of heat + pressure bonds the colour in the foil to the laser toner. Once the paper has cooled you carefully peel it away and the foil is left stuck only to the toner, effectively covering it.

I tried this myself using some of her gold TRF foil on a serial number I laser printed onto laser decal sheet and for a first attempt it worked pretty well. It could do with some refinement as I didn't have a laminator so did the bonding by fixing the foil to the decal paper with masking tape to hold it taught and running it through the laser printer again by printing a blank page. It actually worked although I had to do some clean-up with a scapel.

Anyway the point is, TRF foil isn't that expensive and comes in a variety of colours including white. So in theory you just print the decals in black first, then overlay them with white TRF.

This video shows the process in practice:

Not having any white foil to hand I can't try it but maybe someone else wants to be the first to give it a go?

I'm trying to do some gold cheat lines and serials for a project so if I get any success I'll post the results.

Edited August 16, 2016 by OneEighthBit

[Black Knight]

Very interesting

[Foghorn Leghorn]

by fixing the foil to the decal paper with masking tape to hold it taught and running it through the laser printer again

Wow, you're a brave man, lucky the laser didn't melt the glue on the masking tape and stuff up the printer.

Sounds facinating though ...

[Giorgio N]

There is a product for sale in the US that works exactly this way and is advertised to make white and metallic decals, so your idea is indeed sound.

Looking forward to seeing your results, if successful would open a lot of possibilities

[bootneck]

There is a product for sale in the US that works exactly this way and is advertised to make white and metallic decals, so your idea is indeed sound.

Looking forward to seeing your results, if successful would open a lot of possibilities

Do you know the name of that product Giorgio? Others may be interested as well.

Mike

[Giorgio N]

Mike,

the product I had in mind is Pulsar's Decal Pro FX. I made a mistake however, it does not produce waterslide decals but transfers (that of course can then be applied on clear decal paper...).

http://www.pulsarprofx.com/decalpro/Vertical/1_MENU/1b_Overview/Overview.html

I've always been intrigued by this product but does not seem to have been available outside the US and none of the shops was willing to deliver to my country.

In any case this sparked my interest in the potential use of TR foils, but again I've had troubles in finding these locally. I'll watch with interest to the OP results, may be a good way to make white markings and also gold and silver ones. The latter two may not be too importat to me but they can be very useful for civil aircrafts and car modellers

[Greenshirt]

The requirement for a hot air gun likely puts the pulsar pro solution on "don't try this with plastic models" list.

Tim

[Giorgio N]

The requirement for a hot air gun likely puts the pulsar pro solution on "don't try this with plastic models" list.

Tim

The hot air gun is needed to make the foil react with the toner, a job that is done away from the model. Once the process is complete, the modeller is left with rub-down transfers ready to be applied to whatever surface

[Murdo]

Ooooooh!

I DO love this site.

So many new ideas.... Things to try...

Need more money to spend...

[Foghorn Leghorn]

The more I look into it, the more interesting it gets. Pulsar Decal Pro FX sounds facinating as well. All in all, either product has the potential to be a game changer.

Going back to TRF, there's a good range of colours and not just metallics:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Compatible-Heidi-Swapp-Minc-Reactive-Foil-20cm-x-10m-15m-/161977745668?var=&hash=item25b6a04104:m:mcvb7t5bLl2rQNhVsEkZ2-g

(They've run out of 5m rolls on this posting)

I'm tempted to go and buy a laminator and foil right now to play with it but there's a few possible hiccups. Assuming it works and you can create decals, the following questions come to mind:

1. What happens to the foil/toner when it's put it in water

2. Will the foil/toner crack when you put the decal on curved surfaces

3. Will it react badly to varnish and/or decal setter

4. Effects of long term exposure to light etc

5. Will the foil/toner flake off the original black laser toner over time

I can't see 1 or 2 being a problem because I assume the toner will be simialr to what is used in a Laser printer, but you can't be sure.

Neil

[Greenshirt]

The hot air gun is needed to make the foil react with the toner, a job that is done away from the model. Once the process is complete, the modeller is left with rub-down transfers ready to be applied to whatever surface

Ok, now I'm interested. Thanks Giorgio.

Tim

[Pin]

This has already been discussed on this forum

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/32191-dry-transfers-anyone-heard-of-this-or-used-it

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/80224-making-your-own-decals/#entry880962

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234924797-custombespoke-decals/#entry1105430

Taking into account that the first message is back to 2009 it's not a game changer

[Foghorn Leghorn]

This has already been discussed on this forum

Taking into account that the first message is back to 2009 it's not a game changer

Now I've watched the video of the pulsar system it does seem a bit of a long winded process. On the other hand, the TRF idea from OneEighthBit does have great potential. Oh, if only I had a bit of spare cash to experiment ...

[OneEighthBit]

So I did a quick experiment with the metallic foil I had to hand the results are as follows.

• Comment from the missus is that a laminator is going to give them best results as it's probably got better heat/pressure and doesn't curl the decal paper around the drum like a laser printer does. That and you can put smaller pieces through rather than a whole sheet.
• My decal paper was cheap and looking at the surface, not as smooth as it could have been so the results weren't optimal.
• Rather than tape the foil to the paper, again the missus said do the trick of placing a piece of A4 over the top to hold everything in place.

As for the decal

• It worked! I got a set of gold serial numbers that I could trim down.
• I tested them on a bit of scrap plastic and they went down just fine.
• Problem: The Humbrol decal fix lifted the gold colour from the foil leaving me with just the silver base colour. I think it might be that the TRF uses a film of some sort to give the "tint" to the underlying silver to make it gold.

Conclusions at this point are that after printing it might be worth putting a think layer of varnish over the decal to seal it so that your decal fix doesn't affect the TRF.

The missus has said she'll order me some opaque white film next time she orders some for herself and I promised to get her a laminator in return.

Edited August 20, 2016 by OneEighthBit

[Foghorn Leghorn]

The missus has said she'll order me some opaque white film next time she orders some for herself and I promised to get her a laminator in return.

Seems a fair deal, you buy the laminator and possibly get a never-ending supply of decals. Job's a good 'un

Thanks for the info, I'm getting closer to committing to this system, just need to get life's crap out of the way first and then I can get back to modelling

[Giorgio N]

Sounds like you are on the right way, your results are very interesting! Looking forward to your test with the white film.

In the meantime I've found a supplier of a similar film for use on PCBs, may buy some foil when back from holidays

[bootneck]

............there is stuff called "Toner Reactive Foil" which is a tiny sheet of colour foil, often metallic backed onto a clear sheet. Basically what you do is place it over a laser printed design, run it through a laminator and the combination of heat + pressure bonds the colour in the foil to the laser toner. Once the paper has cooled you carefully peel it away and the foil is left stuck only to the toner, effectively covering it.

I tried this myself using some of her gold TRF foil on a serial number I laser printed onto laser decal sheet and for a first attempt it worked pretty well. It could do with some refinement as I didn't have a laminator so did the bonding by fixing the foil to the decal paper with masking tape to hold it taught and running it through the laser printer again by printing a blank page. It actually worked although I had to do some clean-up with a scapel.

I've bought some Toner reactive white foil (it looks just like roll-on Tipp-Ex material). I tried it as in the video, with a sheet of ordinary printer paper onto black laser printed text but through a laminator and it worked fairly fine. The white was probably too thin though and the result was almost white as the black print underneath affected it.

I had problems though when I did the same with a laser decal sheet as the whole piece of white foil got transferred to the decal sheet so ended up with a white rectangle.

Anyone else tried it and had success with white foil? I would be keen to know as I now have a roll of this stuff and can see great potential for this, if I can get just the text to transfer to the decal sheet.

Mike

[Giorgio N]

I've bought some Toner reactive white foil (it looks just like roll-on Tipp-Ex material). I tried it as in the video, with a sheet of ordinary printer paper onto black laser printed text but through a laminator and it worked fairly fine. The white was probably too thin though and the result was almost white as the black print underneath affected it.

I had problems though when I did the same with a laser decal sheet as the whole piece of white foil got transferred to the decal sheet so ended up with a white rectangle.

Anyone else tried it and had success with white foil? I would be keen to know as I now have a roll of this stuff and can see great potential for this, if I can get just the text to transfer to the decal sheet.

Mike

Not tried yet but just bought a sheet of white TRF from the Bay, I'll start testing as soon as the sheet arrives here

Wonder if the foil also reacts with the coating of the decal sheet ? That would be annoying as I can't think of any way to sort this, apart from maybe coating the non black areas with varnish (a pain in a certain part of the body with small lettering)

[bootneck]

It does appear that the decal sheet coating has some sort of plastic content and that might be why the TRF stuck to the whole sheet. I was thinking of giving the decal sheet a spray of varnish/decal bonder first and, once completely dry, then put it through the printer and print the text or image onto it. Then continue as before.

Mike

[OneEighthBit]

I had the same problem bootneck and had the same thought. I was actually pondering making a small mask to limit the foil to contacting the area where the decal is.

The other thought I had is how important the temperature is. You want *just* enough to fuse the foil to the toner but not the decal sheet. I know you can affect the fuser temperature in a laser printer by changing the paper type in the print properties. If that's not practical and you don't have a temperature controlled laminator, maybe putting another sheet of paper over the foil and using an iron would give some degree of heat control.

[Giorgio N]

I had the same problem bootneck and had the same thought. I was actually pondering making a small mask to limit the foil to contacting the area where the decal is.

The other thought I had is how important the temperature is. You want *just* enough to fuse the foil to the toner but not the decal sheet. I know you can affect the fuser temperature in a laser printer by changing the paper type in the print properties. If that's not practical and you don't have a temperature controlled laminator, maybe putting another sheet of paper over the foil and using an iron would give some degree of heat control.

This is annoying, I hope it's just a matter of sorting the settings.

In the meantime I've received some opaque white TRF, will start testing as soon as I get back from a business trip. Reading your experiences I'm now thinking of some potential solutions, hoping that these don't bring more trouble than else...

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I had the same problem bootneck and had the same thought. I was actually pondering making a small mask to limit the foil to contacting the area where the decal is.

Still following this thread with much interest, I hope Giorgio ,Mike and Oneeighthbit solve the problems. I appreciate the time (and money) you guys are putting into this little project.

Neil

Edited September 12, 2016 by Foghorn Leghorn

[Giorgio N]

A good couple of months after my latest post on this thread, I have some update: tested the procedure with a laminator and had the same problem that others had: the foil stickes very well to the toner, however it also sticks to the decal paper, so the result is a totally white bit of decal, not good.

I've noticed however that when using a leftover bit of clear decal where some paint had been applied, the foil didn't stick to this paint. I have to see if I can coat the decal paper with paint and have the toner stick to this paint, may be a solution.

Have to say that at the same time I'm seeing a number of white toner based solutions, still quite expensive but now they are in the hundreds fo US$, not the thousands as used to be with printers like the OKI white toner printers

[Giorgio N]

I'm doing some progress with this and I'm now a bit more positive...

As mentioned in my previous post, I had noticed how the foil did not stick to a painted area on a bit of scrap clear decal. So I tried to overcoat the decal paper with clear varnishes of different types and print on these. I initially tried using the various clear paints I generally use on my models and things didn't go well. The reason is most likely that these varnishes are all acrylic as today I mostly use these paints (that give me great results on my models). Even the Tamiya clear didn't make any difference, the foil kept sticking to the varnished decal film,

Then Saturday I passed by a local model shop in search of an enamel based varnish, following a feeling that acrylic paints seem to have a lower melting point (so allowing the foil to stick). The only such varnich I could find at the shop was Model Master's clear lacquer, in its matt variant only. Not sure if this is ideal as I'd prefer to have a gloss finish to go over the glossed model surface. In any case this product makes a big difference, as the foil does not stick to the varnished decal paper but only to the toner now.

I've yet to perfect the technique as at the moment I have the edges of the toner not properly covered, hopefully it's just a matter of sorting the laminator settings.

One of these days I'm also planning a visit to another shop that stocks the complete Humbrol range, Humbrol should have both a matt and gloss enamel varnish, since these are much more easily available in Britain than Model Master's (actually the same applies to my home country today since MM products are not imported anymore), I feel that checking the technique with them is going to be preferrable for the future and for the fellow modellers on this forum.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Appreciate the effort you're putting in Giorgio.