Inkjet printing will bleed unless you seal it before applying. So, if you are cutting the decal into thin strips, you will need to cut first, then seal because otherwise the stripe edges will bleed and mess everything up.
I've had success both with masking and spraying and with making stripes with decals. I have always planned it so I could apply dark stripes to light surfaces.
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NVSRRHas anybody taken white decal blank paper and sprayed on a solid color, then cut it down into decal stripes? Or I am I going to be doing an experiment?
I've seen a "how to" article (I think in MR) where somebody took one of Microscale's solid decal sheets (where the entire page is just one color) and cut it into stripes. Can't see why what you suggest would be all that different, except that you're creating your own solid-color decal page?
NVSRR Does it come in 1/16th which is what i need. I dont do well at masking straight lines. shane
Does it come in 1/16th which is what i need. I dont do well at masking straight lines.
shane
NVSRRwayne, did you do masking over paint to help stop bleed On the Bee?
The BEE was done quite a few years ago, and I experienced little in the way of bleed-under using regular masking tape. The Athearn cars' roofs were masked to paint the sides and ends yellow, then after the yellow had dried for several days, I used ordinary masking tape to mask for the stripes.
To keep them straight, I put ordinary masking tape onto my glass work surface, then use a sharp blade and straightedge to remove both factory-edges of the tape. This gets rid of the dings and dents, and the fuzz that collects on the edges of the tape, and the not-quite-as sticky-as-it-should-be adhesive (due to exposure to air) near the tape's edges.
To match the BEE's stripe spacing, which is on a former Rivarossi car, I determined that the uppermost stripe needed to be on the Athearn cars' rivetted belt line, right below the windows. That stripe is 1'(HO) wide, with a 3"(HO) space between it and the line below, which is 6"(HO) in width.With another 3"(HO) space below that, the bottom stripe is 3"(HO) in width.
Starting at the top of the pre-trimmed tape, I cut the tape into eight 1'(HO) wide strips, placing one at the top of each of the belt-line rivet battens, then using my fingnail to form it over the multi-dimensional profile of the battens.This naturally left the width somewhat less than one scale foot, so after determining where the bottom edgeof that stripe should actually be, I applied the second pre-cut 1' strips to fill-out the missing width, overlapping the first-applied tape.
I followed that, on all four carsides, with an application of 3"(HO) tape (to represent the black space which would be between the yellow stripes), then added the 6" tape, followed by another 3" spacer and the bottom 3" tape to cover what was to become the bottom yellow stripe.
I have done this type of striping and masking between colours many times, with very few difficulties, but had never had as much bleed-under as occurred on this occasion. I was aware of the procedure to mask and re-paint with the first colour to prevent the bleed-under, but since I had not experienced any serious problems previously, omitted that step.
Once the paint had dried, much of the bleed-under could be scraped off with a chisel-style blade in my X-Acto, but it still left a shadow which was difficult to cover - I did a lot of the touch-up using a brush.
I don't like blaming the tape for my problems with the Athearn cars, but it was disappointing, to say the least. The tape, when applied to the glass for cutting into strips, seemed to stick really well - I wonder if removing it from the glass left a lot of the adhesive behind, and not so much on the tape?
I don't foresee any more instances where I'll need to repeat this procedure (the only other rolling stock needed for the Erie Northshore will be a half-dozen-or-so scratchbuilt cabooses - also yellow and black, but if any stripes are needed, they'll be black and I'll do them with decals.
I'll definitely get some better masking tape - perhaps both some of the Tamiya tape and some automotive-grade tape, too.
Wayne
Beautifully done restoration Mel.
wayne, did you do masking over paint to help stop bleed On the Bee?
i have the Tamyia masking tape. Didnt know automotive masking came so narrow. I will have to look. Does it come in 1/16th which is what i need. I dont do well at masking straight lines. On my NVSRR the stripes covers the mask line between the blue and grey. I can get a decal much straighter. I was also just curious if the idea would work. Model flex is suppossed to be a flexible paint though.
lastly. Why does paint shift color when sprayed vs brushed? I find that a lot when touching up an airbrushed color
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RR_Mel I just mask it and shoot the stripes with my airbrush. I used True-Color paint and my cheapo Harbor Freight airbrush for that E7 with a combination of Scotch-Blue Delicate Surface 2080 tape and 3M-471 Automotive striping tape. Works great. Mel
Rich
Alton Junction
NVSRRHas anybody taken white decal blank paper and sprayed on a solid color, then cut it down into decal stripes?
While I often mask-off areas on newly-lettered freight cars before weathering them to create "new-looking-areas" of paint, which will be used to add re-weigh and re-pack data to cars like these...
...I also paint clear decal paper with various shades of boxcar red/brown and also with black, as with the re-pack data shown on the two cars above.
Here's one with the patch of black-painted decal applied...
...and with the lettering added...
The problem with these airbrushed decals is that even strong decal solvents, such as Solvaset, have a tough time softening the painted portion of the decal - the decal film responds to the setting solution, while the paint does not.
I'd think that the results would be even more noticeable for striping.
Mel's suggestion of masking and painting the stripes is a good one, but be sure to use a good-quality masking tape, as Mike suggests.
I recently painted two Athearn coaches, to be used as trailer cars for my doodlebug, "The BEE". The results were less than satisfactory, as I used my regular masking tape, with all factory-edges trimmed off, but the plethora of small rivets on the cars' sides allowed an inordinate amount of bleed-under of the black paint, resulting in a lot of brushwork to make things somewhat more presentable...
Tamyia also makes a great tape for masking curves. You can get it in different widths,
Mike.
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I need a stripe color that is not standard decal. Color matching with printing is tough, and even then it still might not w ork to print it because of the problem of printing and transparency. Has anybody taken white decal blank paper and sprayed on a solid color, then cut it down into decal stripes? Or I am I going to be doing an experiment?
Shane