Paint a white patch on the car or loco to be decaled. Make it slightly smaller than the final decal. Then use the loco or car colour on your decal as a outline for you lettering. The lettering will appear white on your screen but clolourlees on the decal but white on the loco.
It works well with PRR round Keystone Emblems
Vance Bass did a review of that dry transfer system a while back for GR. Seems to have worked pretty well, though if I recall, you had to apply them pretty much right then and there. (Which isn't really an issue since the system is designed for one-off production anyway.)
Later,
K
Hunting white decals and dry transfers I found this site. I am not affiliated with, nor have I tried them yet, just offering a possible alternative.
http://www.pulsarprofx.com/decalpro/Vertical/1_MENU/1b_Overview/Overview.html
Bob C.
Thanks! He does really nice looking stuff!
I'll have to find out if he ships international.
Regards, Greg
Visit my site: http://www.elmassian.com - lots of tips on locos, rolling stock and more.
Click here for Greg's web site
Here it is. Sorry I missed it last time out!
The guys on GSCALE CENTRAL forum have used him and they appear very happy with his work.
www.parkes682decals.piczo.com
Why not just post a link to the company?
Greg
Theres a guy in the UK who makes white decals using an Epson bog standard printer. However..the secret is the ink he uses and no one is going to learn it!!
Very effective decals he comes up with too and NOT too pricey. He has made his work known on GSCALE Central so have a look at GSC.
I like clear laser decal paper. Goes on real good. If you have a light color background, most colors show up fine. For real whites you have to go with one of the guys mentioned above. Stan has done several for me. My wife used to run a sign biz out of the house and still has her vinyl cutter, like Del Taprio uses. Bit thicker than decals, does best on a smooth surface. You can weed the cut vinyl to be a stencil you paint with also. The vinyl goes on as one list of lettering, not individual letters. I think Del has some good directions on his web site.
Jerry
web site:
http://thescrr.com/
There is another way, there is a company making white laser toner.
You have to use a laser printer that has never used black toner. This company supplies toner and drums that are "unsoiled".
Not a cheap way, and you dedicate a laser printer to white, but it can be done. Usually too expensive for an individual, but I expect someone soon will start producing water slide decals using this method.
It's cheaper than the Alps, and uses current production laser printers.
Time will tell, but I think the economy will have to get better so that the current suppliers can afford to buy the new equipment.
You got me! Had a surge of testosterone and ignored the instructions. Next time I’ll read first. Yes I have the "kit" from Micro Mark.
Tom Trigg
I will try the black picture frame idea....I hadn't thought of that!
As for the wrinkles and bubbles, did you spray your decals with a "fixative" before you removed them from the paper? There is also supposed to be a "kit" of some type for decals that has several steps and the last step is applying a spray that makes edges of the decal almost "disappear" so that the application looks painted on instead of being a decal. I just saw this in a catalog somewhere. I could try to find it again, if anyone is interested.
Thanks so everyone who wrote to answer my question. I appreciate your help more than you can know.
I do not suffer from insanity...I enjoy every minute of it!!! Over 60 and still playing with toys!
I’ve had a small bit of good luck putting a black "picture frame" around a background pattern with white lettering. The decals turned out nice and looked good when holding them up to where they were going to be applied. Getting the decal off the backing paper and onto the car-side proved to be a big problem for me, wrinkles and bubbles galore.
As Ray mentioned, you're not going to have much luck with ink-jet printers. Here are two guys who do custom decals for you. I've worked with both of them and they each do good work.
Stan Cedarleaf - http://gold.mylargescale.com/StanCedarleaf/WebPageDecals/CustomDecalsx.html
Jeff Damherst - http://www.shawmutcarshops.com
I believe both use the Alps printers, which are (sadly) quite obsolete these days. You can find the printers on ebay from time to time, but running them with the latest OSs is getting more and more problematic. They were designed when the "latest" OSs were Win95/98 and Mac OS7/8. Most folks who have the printers have dedicate "obsolete" computers set up just to run the printers.
Beyond that, there are other processes that you could use. Some folks have been using the P-touch labelers, using white or gold on clear backgrounds. That works okay for some instances, but not others, as the clear background is rather thick and noticeable. Del Tapparo (G-Scale Graphics http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/DelTapparo does vinyl lettering, which you just press onto your car.
Other solutions include the YuDu home silk-screen printer, which you can use to make your own decals (or t-shirts or whatever...) A bit pricey for just one sheet, though. There's also a printer in Vancouver who will do custom dry transfers (rub-down lettering). Again, a bit pricey for one sheet (c. $60), but if you do your artwork right, you could squeeze 5 or 6 cars per sheet, which brings your cost per car down to reasonable. There's also a laser printer-based dry transfer system whose name escapes me right now. Vance Bass did a product review a while back, though, so check the archives here.
Sadly, you can't use the white decal paper to make white letters on a clear background, and you can't use any kind of regular printer to print white letters on clear decal paper.
In some cases you can get around this by printing the letters with a dark background that matches the color the lettering will be applied to. This works best if you're lettering something black, like a loco, as the black is much easier to get a good match than most other colors.
There are some people who have an old Alps printer, who can print white-on-clear for you at a reasonable price.
Has anyone tried to make their own decals using white decal paper and an inkjet printer? I was just wondering how that would work since the decal paper is white, how would you see the letters or the words that you want to cut out and apply to your railroad car? Can an inkjet printer make the color white? If so, how do you see the edges of the letters?
I've made my own decals using clear decal paper and printing out black lettering but I'm totally confused about how the white decal paper works.
Can anyone enlighten me?
Thanks so much!
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