Laser printed decals ? Yes please !

[Giorgio N]

After a few years printing some of my own decals using an inkjet printer, I decided to try a colour laser printer ! This was made possible by the availability on the market of some cheap models and among them I bough the Epson C1700. Why this one ? First of all, it was on offer where I bought my new laptop, so I got both. The printer cost me around £50, so a very good price for a laser colour printer.

Then it's a Epson, a brand that is well known and with which I've mostly had good experiences in the past.

initially I was a bit worried about the resolution, as it's only 600X600 DPI, so less than what's usually possible with inkjet printers. No problem when printing black or any other base colour, but with some colours the pixels can be seen if looking at the decal from close enough. Unfortunately there's no solution for this, although to be honest it only happens with some colours.

One thing I love is that compared to other laser printers, the toners used in this one are really bright ! Usually laser printed colours are a bit dull, not with this one though.

Now on to printing some decals, for which I used my trusted Bare Metal clear and white paper, in this case of course the version made for laser printers: with the clear paper, the results are very good. As usual, the dark colours cover well over every underlying paint, the light ones though don't cover much and don't cover at all over dark colours. Still, even the yellow here covered well over a light grey, something I never achieved using my older inkjets. As I have several USN types that need custom markings, this is very good news. The artwork didn't need any protecting coat, although they are more fragile than commercial decals. Another good aspect is that colours that gave me problems with inkjets, like the greens, came out very well.

With white decal paper the colours were again nice, however they seemed to be even more fragile. I tried to make some decals that needed to be cut accurately on the edges (for example a few Iraqi insignia) and even with a new blade the artwork ended up with jagged borders showing the underlying white paper. This was sorted with some touch-ups on the iraqi markings, but is going to be a problem in the future. The same occurred unfortunately also after coating the artwork with Microsol's decal film.

I also tried to print on white decal paper meant for inkjets, hoping that the more porous surface would work better. And it did work better, but still not as I liked. Beware: never use inkjet paper in a laser printer unless you understand that you risk to damage the printer !!! Even if I did it, I strongly suggest to avoid this, I take no responsability for any damaged printer !

So all in all I'm quite happy: these decals don't need to be coated as the inkjet ones and are very thin. The colours are good and they all seem to print well. There's some pixelation but nothing to worry about too much. The ones printed on white paper are not as good yet, but I'm studying ways to do these in two parts to avoid the issues I've had. I've already tried this to do some finnish roundels where a decal was printed on clear paper and overlaid on a white disk and the results have been very good (my MiG-21 finally has roundels !), I'll see if more complicated designs can be made easily or not...

[depressed lemur]

Sounds very interesting, but most of us here cannot read very well and need pics before we can join up the letters. Please give us a pic or two.

[ChocksAway]

Indeed - some photos would help. Also, what is a problem to you may be acceptable to others - depending on need, scale, etc.

Does anyone else have laser v inkjet experiences to share? I use inkjet at the moment, but find my Canon MP560 and cheap inks struggle - the best setting I've found (that keeps the ink from bubbling /smudging) is the t-shirt transfer setting. Always interesting, as I have to remember to flip the images before printing, else it's like the old days with printing your slides reversed with Cibachrome!

Being completely ignorant in this area, how to professional printers handle the issue of light colours? DIY we seem to have to use white paper and cut to the edge of the decal or try and match the paint colour as an outline (a recipe for a lot of printing and little success in my case).

Hope that's not nicking your thread Giorgio. I'll delete this is if it is.

[Giorgio N]

No problem in discussing about decal printing in general, the more information the better ! Professional printers have access to totally different inks in totally different equipment. Most decals have a white layer under the colours, so that any colour will be right. But they can print white, we hobbyists usually can't.

Some pictures that should explain the results better. First of all the simpler things, that is a black number, in this case over a dark wing. This was supposed to be the Canadian CF-104 I was building for the F-104 STGB but didn't manage to finish.

The black toner is well opaque and no underlying colour shows through. Now the wing has received a coat of Klear on top, so it's impossible to see the brightness of the decal. The result is good and no pixelation is evident. To give an idea of the size of the real things, all these models are 1/72 and the divisions on the blue cutting mat are each of 10 mm.

Now for a dark colour over a light background: the blue ANG markings on this Mustang have been printed with the new laser, the black numbers are part printed with an inkjet and part on an older B/W laser:

The blue is quite good, the metal surface does not show through. This is good as most USAF aircraft in natural metal had blue titles.

A bit more difficult now: some colour but over a white background. These Finnish decals have been printed on clear paper and then applied over a white disc.

The blue is not a pure colour and some pixelation can be seen. However the result is not bad and I'm sure a better job could be done testing different colours... as can be seen in these following pictures of an Iraqi insignia under the wings of a Fury:

The one on top has a lighter green and pixelation is a bit more evident than on the one below. Depending on how the colour is built up by the printer the pixels seem to be more or less evident. Both have been printed on white paper and it can be seen that the edges show some of the white background where they got damaged. The on top also got some damage while I tried to poush it down in the panel line... I had learnt how to do it properly on the second one.

This is the top insignia printed on the inkjet paper that was a bit better, although some damage still occurred to the edges:

Yes, it's still a long way to go to get professionally looking decals, but I'm quite happy with this laser printer. I don't really think I'll ever print any more decal on my inkjet, although it will still be useful to print my work stuff.

[ben_m]

I've been using laser printed decals since returning to the hobby a few years ago.

One technique I developed was to overcome the problem of creating light markings for a dark background colour.

Begin by painting a tightly-fitting patch of colour where you want the markings.

Then draw the marking in white (i.e. no toner will be applied there), and surround this with a blurred border of the background colour. Try to match the paint as closely as possible, I've not bothered to print a test sheet of different tones, but that could be done. I opted to go slightly darker than the background, as this is preferable to going too light (the darker surround around the light marking will give a sharpening effect, like in a digital photo sharpening filter). To avoid seeing the edge of the printed colour meeting the paint, you make the edges of the printed background colour feathered (blurred)- but be sure the printed colour covers the patch of light colour painted on the model before the fading out begins.

(the red above the door and the black data placard are kit decals)

[Giorgio N]

Ben, you did a great job with those decals, very nice !

I used this technique myself a couple of times, for example to recreat the white lettering and the tail markings on a grey over black early Canberra. However with the inkjet paper I had to add a few coats of micro decal film and in the end I could notice quite a step between paint and decal. I hope to try the system soon with the laser printer now.

You did a very good job in nailing an extremely close colour between paint and decal, did you just check on your monitor ?

[Kiwidave4]

With white decal paper the colours were again nice, however they seemed to be even more fragile. I tried to make some decals that needed to be cut accurately on the edges (for example a few Iraqi insignia) and even with a new blade the artwork ended up with jagged borders showing the underlying white paper. This was sorted with some touch-ups on the iraqi markings, but is going to be a problem in the future. The same occurred unfortunately also after coating the artwork with Microsol's decal film.

I have made B & W decals for some years using my old HP Laser printer and have yet to find a solution to this problem. Seems the ink does not 'key' to the paper.

I model armour so usually manage to hide the jagged edge with some 'weathering' as appropriate!

Dave

[albertz]

You can print your own decals?????!!!!

[Ian M]

Can a printed sheet be put through a laser printer again. I have done it in an ink printer, reprinting the decals over each other.

Or will the laser printer simply melt the first "coat"...?

Does any one know of the rumour of white laser toner?

Ian M

[Giorgio N]

Can a printed sheet be put through a laser printer again. I have done it in an ink printer, reprinting the decals over each other.

Or will the laser printer simply melt the first "coat"...?

Does any one know of the rumour of white laser toner?

Ian M

The problem is that the printed areas are very fragile, and with the sheet passing through the rollers the artwork would get damaged very easily. Personally if a white toner appeared, I'd use this to just print the white background and print the rest separately on clear paper.

Speaking of white toner, it is available for a number of OKI printers. These are however very expensive. One solution would be to find a shop with one of these printers and have them print the white only... assuming the prices they ask are fair.

[Ian M]

They are a tad expensive aren't they- for a printer and a set of toners we're up in the area of £3000......

I think I'll pass on that and try getting the local plastic pusher to get one for the shop------Hmm-

Ian M

[Paul @ Parkes682Decals]

Hi

There is a White laser printer,if you have a spare £4,000 and the white toners are £650 each its very expensive to print decals that way.

Thats why i looked at and developed a "White" inkjet in A4 format.

Its been working for about 4 years,have a look at my section Parkes682Decals.

Its something i looked into years ago lasers are very,very expensive to make decals.

Paul