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DIY Decals


echen

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Thought I'd be clever and make my own decals.

Bought some decal paper and played for ages on the computer to get what I wanted in the correct size. I realise I cannot print white decals. Black images and serial numbers print fine as do and red/green coloured divisional markings that I have tried so far although I have yet to try anything blue. But yellow triangles for tank turret sides are so ill defined as to be invisible once applied so I had to remove them. Same applies to anything else yellow.

Has anyone else encountered this issue and found a remedy?

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As Colin says, you use white decal paper for decals with white in them. Where printer ink is a bit transluscent, you need to apply at least two decals one on top of another.

 

Dave

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There is practically nothing you can do about it, unless you want to go through the expenses related with purchasing a printer that can print with white ink or toner.

The inks and toner used by home printers (and not only) are designed to be used on a white background and for this reason are not opaque enough to cover dark colours. If you'r printing decals that go over a white subject it's fine, with light painted subjects you may still get away with it but even on a medium grey painted subject your decal will not work if it's for example in yellow. Red covers a bit better but just increase the darkness of the underlying paint a bit and even red and green will be useless.

The use of white decal paper can help and one trick is to print both the artwork and part of the painted area on white paper. In you case you would have to print the yellow triangle and whatever camo colours within the triangle, and ideally also a thin surround around the triangle outer edges in these same colours. Then cut, apply in place and if required (and it will likely be required...) touch up and blend the edges with a small brush using the tank colour. Worth the hassle ? Depends, sometime it is as allows to build a model with certain specific markings, sometimes it's just simpler to use other methods.

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  • 6 months later...

Bought some white decal paper.

Printed some 1/72 markings for my Diamond T Tank Transporter. Some of the decals slide off the backing and go straight on to the model. Others disintegrate as I try and manoeuvre them into place.

Initially I only added one coat of Humbrol Gloss Cote. As the surface tore up I tried two coats of Gloss Cote but this doesn't seem to be helping. I did notice at one point the colour was washing out of the edges of a decal as I soaked it.

The decals with most problem are 4 and 5mm square in red, blue, yellow and green. Larger decals 10mm square and a 15mm length decal of a dashboard seem to hold together quite well so I'm a bit puzzled as to what I'm doing wrong.

Anyone got any ideas, please?

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Are these inkjet printed decals, or laser? For inkjet, an acrylic clearcut is normally recommended, humbrol gloss coat would be a bit too hot I would guess. Also, I for one have never been able to make inkjet decals work consistently without risk of bleed, I've tried several clear coats and got up to 75% success rate, but they are so fickle, also using a decal setter is a pain because it really has to be applied under the decal.

 

If you are using laser printed decals, these don't need a clear coat, but they can be fragile if the decal becomes wrinkled, the toner which is in theory bonded to the decal paper can flake off. Different colours will have slightly different adhesion properties, and a laser printer with a worn drum unit might also cause poor adhesion. 

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10 minutes ago, Bangseat said:

For inkjet, an acrylic clearcut is normally recommended, humbrol gloss coat would be a bit too hot I would guess.

Thanks for your response. I'm using an inkjet printer and compatible inks rather than makers' megabucks products. My previous attempt using transparent decal film worked fine, even with microset/sol, but I wanted to get better colour reproduction, hence the white paper. I haven't got any acrylic clearcut so I'll try that if my ordinary humbrol gloss varnish lets me down in a test I'm planning.

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On 3/29/2021 at 12:44 PM, echen said:

Bought some white decal paper.

Printed some 1/72 markings for my Diamond T Tank Transporter. Some of the decals slide off the backing and go straight on to the model. Others disintegrate as I try and manoeuvre them into place.

Initially I only added one coat of Humbrol Gloss Cote. As the surface tore up I tried two coats of Gloss Cote but this doesn't seem to be helping. I did notice at one point the colour was washing out of the edges of a decal as I soaked it.

The decals with most problem are 4 and 5mm square in red, blue, yellow and green. Larger decals 10mm square and a 15mm length decal of a dashboard seem to hold together quite well so I'm a bit puzzled as to what I'm doing wrong.

Anyone got any ideas, please?

 

I use Microscale's Liquid Decal Film on my home made decals but at first I also had the water get in under the edges when soaking them in water which made the ink run. I found the trick is to cut them out first then coat them in the Decal Film, that way it seals the edges and to make it easier I sprayed the Decal Film through the airbrush onto the cut out decals.

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  • 1 month later...

I am about to delve into the murky world of printing inject decals - I tip I picked up from elsewhere was for instance if you are printing on white paper - print the outside of the decal roughly the colour the portion of the model onto which it will be placed - then when you trim it - you won't get any white portion of the decal showing and should blend in better. 

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47 minutes ago, Savenosouls said:

I am about to delve into the murky world of printing inject decals

Hope it works out for you. The tip works as I've tried it already. Problem is I'm a bit colour-blind and getting anything like a match proved an issue - until I used photo shop to get the colours from the Humbrol paint chart and adding that colour round the outside ( and in the centre if the design was hollow ) as per the tip.

Thanks again for the post, though,

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22 hours ago, echen said:

Hope it works out for you. The tip works as I've tried it already. Problem is I'm a bit colour-blind and getting anything like a match proved an issue - until I used photo shop to get the colours from the Humbrol paint chart and adding that colour round the outside ( and in the centre if the design was hollow ) as per the tip.

Thanks again for the post, though,

Like the idea of getting the colour from the humbrol chart - good shout!

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When you print on white decal paper , you should color the surrounding of your design with the background color of your model. On encyclopedia.com you can find the Hex code of most model paints. When you use this code for  defining the background color on your print, you will get a good match with the painted model.

And there is a guy in Holland who can print white and color on decal sheet : printmetwit.nl . The only "disadvantage", is that you need to fill an A4 sheet with your design.

 

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