RAF roundel question

[philbean]

so.. why do they always print the red dot seperate to the rest of the roundel?

Its a complete pig to get it dead centre.

[Andrew Jones]

It's much harder to get dead centre if it's printed there out of register

[Test Graham]

I wish they'd print the yellow separate, that seems to be wrong a lot more times than the red.

Edited January 5, 2010 by Graham Boak

[pigsty]

I don't understand it either. And it's not just RAF roundels - French roundels are often printed with a separate centre, and that means making the blue bit separate. This leads me to think that it can't be because the red phase of the printing process is always more at risk of going off-register. Yet that in turn means that all colours must be equally at risk, which should mean that the outer ring should be printed separately as well! Perhaps, though, it's because it's easier to trim the offending portions on the outside.

Says he, specualting wildly. Does any of our decal-printing colleagues know?

[TonyT]

Are you sure it is not simply to do with Copyright, the MOD hold the Copyright on the roundel, by removing the red dot you instantly do not need to buy a royalty licence fee for using it, as it is no longer a RAF roundel.......

Edited January 5, 2010 by TonyT

[Paul @ Parkes682Decals]

I don't understand it either. And it's not just RAF roundels - French roundels are often printed with a separate centre, and that means making the blue bit separate. This leads me to think that it can't be because the red phase of the printing process is always more at risk of going off-register. Yet that in turn means that all colours must be equally at risk, which should mean that the outer ring should be printed separately as well! Perhaps, though, it's because it's easier to trim the offending portions on the outside.

Says he, specualting wildly. Does any of our decal-printing colleagues know?

Hi there

Well,I print all of mine all together its easier that way saves messing about.

Autocad allows you to do it very easy and the are not out of register,there all drawn as circles on different layers as per colour then all i do is hatch them solid.They come razor sharp because they are Vector based software.

Hope this helps

Paul

Parkes682Decals

[Vingtor]

For silk screen printing, it's all up to the printing machine. Each colour is printed as a separate layer. If the paper moves (just slightly) between two colours, the decals will be off-register. This is independent of the actual colour. But the more colours on a decal sheet, the greater risk for register problems.

The far best silk screen decal printer, in my opinion, is Cartograf. They always print in register. However their prices are high. A very good alternative is Boa, which also prints well in register and is much cheaper.

Nils Mathisrud

Vingtor Decals

www.vingtor.net

[little-cars]

From memory it started when the RAF claimed the roundal as trade mark.

So you need to license it from them to use it....

You can get away with it for short run stuff as they are not seen as 'commercially viable'.

[thx6667]

Its usually done as a registration thing.

[pigsty]

From memory it started when the RAF claimed the roundal as trade mark.

So you need to license it from them to use it....

You can get away with it for short run stuff as they are not seen as 'commercially viable'.

It can't just be this. As I say, other countries' roundels are treated the same way.