Decal Paper? Any good?

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CrazyOB

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Hello all,
I would like to scratch build an Advanced Target Drone but am unable to find the decals. I was wondering what your results were with decal paper for my inkjet printer.

It is recommended to spray the decals with clear acrylic after printing. Is this an immediate operation or do I wait a day for the ink to dry completely.

Also, is one paper better than another?

Thanks.
 
Here is an email I recieved from Bel Decal Papers abou their product:

"Hi Richard,
Your printer is an inkjet printer.
I have not personally tested our paper with a HP Photosmart C6250 printer.
So I cannot guarantee that it will work, but our inkjet paper is compatible with most printers so I don’t see why not.
Maybe you want to purchase our smallest pack as a test package and see if it works for you.
Also the paper usually doesn’t have a shelf life of 8 years.
I would think that was your biggest problem
If you have any other questions, please advise.
Thank you"

The reference to 8 years was that the last piece (my only piece of Inkjet Decal Paper from Bare Metal Foil) was at least that old before I decided to use it. The papers are specially coated to accept the inks, evidently they don't have a long shelf life. Tango Papa Decals has a faq about decal papers on his website. Bel decal papers also has a faq on there site about inkjet papers.
Krylon does offer a UV resistant clear spray, I have not tried it yet.
 
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Hello all,
I would like to scratch build an Advanced Target Drone but am unable to find the decals. I was wondering what your results were with decal paper for my inkjet printer.
My results with your inkjet printer are non-existent. :D However, I've had some decent results on my own printer. The tail art and Roman numerals on my A4 were all printed be me.
003a4_small.jpg

It is recommended to spray the decals with clear acrylic after printing. Is this an immediate operation or do I wait a day for the ink to dry completely.
I wait a day for the ink to dry completely, and then wait another day for the acrylic to dry thoroughly as well. If you don't wait for the ink to dry then it's liable to run when you apply the acrylic, and if the acrylic hasn't dried properly then it may wash off when you soak the decal to use it, and once it's gone, the ink will wash off as well.

Also, is one paper better than another?
Possibly, though even if I knew which one was better, I'm in the UK so my choice of supplier probably wouldn't be available to you. ;) Note that there are clear and white papers. Once the decal is soaked and applied, the clear type has a clear has a clear background so whatever colour you've painted the rocket will show through. (I used this to my advantage once. The yellow on my printer had just run out so the decals came out the wrong colour. I painted the area where they were going in yellow, then that made up for the lack of yellow in the decals.) The white version has a white background but the version I had was rather thick, so it was harder to apply to a curved body tube and had visible edge. If it's not that thick then it's probably semi-transparent and will still show some of the underlying colour if you put it onto a dark rocket. So what I do is paint the area where the decal will go in white, and include the background colour on the decal itself. For example, on that A4, the white Roman numerals on black fins were printed as white numerals with a black background, then I painted the tip of the fin white, applied the decal, then went round the edge with black paint. Likewise, under the decal for the tail art is a large area of white, and the decal includes a black border around the upper half.
 
Thanks for the info guys! Adrian, you brought several goods points about color bleed through. Definitely something to be conscious of. Will flop a picture out here when done.
 
To be honest, if you have access to a color laser printer, use it. It takes care of all the color bleed and sealing issues.
I've used Papillio brand decal paper for quite a while now, particularly back when I was competing heavily with scale models.
It's a bit on the thick side for smaller scale models, but it's just plain perfect for rockets.

-Hans
 
One thing to point out - the Advanced Target Drone's decals are mostly white, with bits of blue for the insignia (the red bars are transparent and the base red paint shows through). Your inkjet printer isn't going to print the white, so your resulting printout will just have the blue bits. But the stripes, wing panels and lettering/numbering will all be lost. You might be better off waiting to see if Stickershock can print you vinyl for it instead.

When I built my ATD clone and my upscale, I got decals from Excelsior. But that's not viable now, as that's one that's shown as out of stock. However, you might try contacting Gord and see if he can still print them for you, since they're mostly white. He printed some decals for me last week (after he'd announced that his printers were dying), but since what I needed was primarily black & white, he was still able to get good results. When I spoke with him, it seemed to be colors that were giving him problems.
 
Hello all,
I would like to scratch build an Advanced Target Drone but am unable to find the decals. I was wondering what your results were with decal paper for my inkjet printer.

It is recommended to spray the decals with clear acrylic after printing. Is this an immediate operation or do I wait a day for the ink to dry completely.

Also, is one paper better than another?

Thanks.

A couple things about Inkjet printed decals.
A: NO White is possilble from an inkjet printer, There is however pre-printed white background inkjet paper on which you can print but you'll need to have a way to crop or cut the print close so the outside white line doesn't spoil the look.

B: Clear coating your printed decals can be done generally within 30minute of the time they are printed, I personally usually wait overnight to clear coat my inkjet or Alps printed decals just to be sure.

C: Clear Coats: Most rattle can clears Do NOT contain any UV inhibitors. Because of this these clears YELLOW very badly in pretty short order. IT is a very good idea to use a UV resistant clear such as Krylon #1305 Gloss or #1309 Matte for this operation. Please note that Krylon Krystal Clear #1300 contains 0% UV Inhibitor just like Testors, S&W, and most other manufactured rattle can clears.

D: I've found the BEST inkjet or Laser(Alps printer) 8.5 X 11 Decal paper come from Micro-Mark or Paplio. I've had awful results with Bel papers. to be honest I've never had a good shipment of papers from Bel the way they package and ship the papers are AWAYS damaged in shipment.
I've never had a single sheet even dogeared when purchaseing from either Micro-Mark or Paplio. Paper quality is supurb and either Clear or White screened backgrounds have been top notch. Neither is the cheapest place to purchase decal paper but then if you get crappy paper with shipping damage from a cheaper source is it really cheaper?

Last thing about printing your own decals: These inkjet decals are much Thinner then real Silkscreened waterslide decals. If not given a couple coats of UV Resistant Clear overcoat they will stretch out of shape badly during application.
I've found it helps my set the inkjet inks with another Clear coat product before applying the Krylon 1305 Gloss UV clear top coat(s)
That product is Krylon #1306 Workable Fixafit. that is not misspelled Workable Fixatif is a fine arts spary clear ment to set pastels, charcoal and pencil art. Works wonderfully on fresh inkjet inks which are not waterproof at all.

One last note on inkjet decals: because these inks do not overlap but are rather super closely spaced Dots of color they ALL come out translucent. don't expect even dark color decals to show up well on darker painted models.

It is also very important to leave about 1/16" no color border around all Inkjet decals when cutting from the sheet. If water gets to any part of your inkjet printed color that water will wick into the entire decal turning it into a brown yuck instantly.
Hope these help a little.

Edit: If any would like a little more info on various methods of printing or making your own water slide decals a visit to www.narhams.org library section looking for Tech Tip-016 "Making Decals" could be of help.
 
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Wow, John has guru-level knowledge of decals!

Here are pics of my first custom decal attempt on an Aerotech Cheetah (sorry if you've seen it before, I like showing it off! :)). I can't recall the decal paper used, but I used an inkjet and did a lot of trial and error - also made sure to print the graphics out on regular paper first, cut to size and arrange the pieces so that I knew where they would go and how they would look. Lots of prep work means less problems when you finally commit.

I would suggest also running the graphics out on regular paper first to see how it looks before you print on decal paper since decal paper is expensive and it would be a shame to have the first print come out screwy on the few decal sheets you have. Also mentioned earlier, it's best on a white background. For white on dark background like the shoes, I printed it out on label paper as a test and it looked great, so I sprayed it with Acryllic used it. Also for areas that were thin on color, I just printed an extra set and used a double layer of decal (you can't tell since the decal was very, very thin).
pic-3.jpg

image-aerotech-chester-cheetah-custom-modified-decals---front2-by-ken-liu-600-062414220206247.jpg

image-aerotech-chester-cheetah-custom-modified-decals---back-by-ken-liu-600-062314224706461.jpg

image-aerotech-chester-cheetah-custom-modified-decals---back2-by-ken-liu-600-062914220106690.jpg


BTW - Very timely...I just bought a color laser printer on Amazon today (less than $200). I'll try to update when I finally get a chance to try it on some decals and I'll let you know if it is worthwhile. I loved the custom graphics work, but it is very time consuming (I pieced together the graphics you see and manually modified things like the fingers) and I may make this more of a winter project.

Good luck!
 
BTW - Very timely...I just bought a color laser printer on Amazon today (less than $200). I'll try to update when I finally get a chance to try it on some decals and I'll let you know if it is worthwhile. I loved the custom graphics work, but it is very time consuming (I pieced together the graphics you see and manually modified things like the fingers) and I may make this more of a winter project.

Would love to hear which printer (link please!) and your experience with whichever brand of paper. I've heard some laser printers and some laser decal papers don't mix; the printer is too hot for the paper. Modern lasers may run a bit cooler and be less likely to cause issue. Would love to hear of a verified combo so I know what to buy if I go that route!

Marc
 
Would love to hear which printer (link please!) and your experience with whichever brand of paper. I've heard some laser printers and some laser decal papers don't mix; the printer is too hot for the paper. Modern lasers may run a bit cooler and be less likely to cause issue. Would love to hear of a verified combo so I know what to buy if I go that route!

Marc

Well, I've just ordered it, so it may be a while before I can test it. I also have a small assortment of decal paper, so I think I'm also in a good position to test; however the one issue for me is time. Work is crazy right now and I've got several rockets being built (various stages) as well as side projects, so often the custom and graphics work takes a back seat since it is very time consuming. One of the big time killers is finding (or creating) the right graphic. I'm not a graphics artist (my wife is though), but I've been complimented a lot on my abilities. Most of my work is basic and I can even use MS Paint - my wife is amazed by my MS Paint abilities :D.

Well, enough about me...here's the printer - Dell C1760 LED printer. It's LED, so it should run cooler and the price is $136 last I checked. I'm not looking for super fine detail since rockets are most often viewed from as close as arm's length to 30+' away; however there were good reviews of the photo resolution:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A7APX0A/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

The resolution seems decent enough (it's better than my inkjet, so that's a plus) and there are decent aftermarket inks available at about half the price of the manufacturer's. Inks are chipped, but it seems all cheap inkjet printers are like this to make up for the low cost.

I'll update once I get a chance to test, but it may be a week or more.

BTW - I also use clear coat on the decals after inkjet printing. I wait overnight, check a spot for dryness where I printed a test area (another suggestion) and then spray. I used Rusto-leum Clear Gloss acrylic since I figured Rusto-leum should have UV inhibitors since their line sells on being good for outdoor stuff, but don't rely on my word here. :)
 
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You need to use laser specific decal paper, and it does start to darken after a couple runs through the printer.
Ink-jet style decal paper just won't work in a laser, it'll melt, and have bad print adhesion.
 
That's a really nice article KenE, though they don't directly mention the UV resistant clear spray issue. Good find. They also carry some stuff I haven't seen before like printable metal foils and printable vinyl.

One thing that didn't get mentioned yet in this thread is the difference in color correction needed for decal paper (esp. the clear kind) vs for regular printer paper. They usually print quite differently...it's easiest to get a match if you are putting clear decal stock over white or a very light color. Unfortunately there's no way too really tell until you apply the decal over the actual base color. I've had to do some serious work including printing color test grids to get correct color decals for some clones. Reds are especially troublesome as red dye type inks are all rather transparent.

On decal media brand I vote for Papilio. Great quality and comes in 11x17 too. I also like their UV clear spray for overcoating, though I'm wondering if it's just OEM'd Krylon UV clear.
 
WOW! Thanks for all the info, now I are really edumacated! (Sorry I just had to throw that in there). Since I have a HP inkjet printer I was actually going to work with the photo cartridge and see what the results are. I know it does throw a clear coat on the print.

I will try it later and add to this post.

As usual, nothing works until you experiment!

Again thanks for all the info. I have to read the links and work on this TODAY! It is raining out so no launch operations will commence.
Bob
 
That's a really nice article KenE, though they don't directly mention the UV resistant clear spray issue. Good find. They also carry some stuff I haven't seen before like printable metal foils and printable vinyl.

One thing that didn't get mentioned yet in this thread is the difference in color correction needed for decal paper (esp. the clear kind) vs for regular printer paper. They usually print quite differently...it's easiest to get a match if you are putting clear decal stock over white or a very light color. Unfortunately there's no way too really tell until you apply the decal over the actual base color. I've had to do some serious work including printing color test grids to get correct color decals for some clones. Reds are especially troublesome as red dye type inks are all rather transparent.

On decal media brand I vote for Papilio. Great quality and comes in 11x17 too. I also like their UV clear spray for overcoating, though I'm wondering if it's just OEM'd Krylon UV clear.

Thanks Dave and that's great advice there too! I definitely agree...I made a lot of test pages on regular paper before using the decal paper since I often saw colors off or images not coming out right or even the printer itself streaking (another good tip is to run the clean/clear the nozzles function before printing).

I haven't tried Papilio yet, but plan to next chance I get.

BTW - I found the Inkjet decal paper I used on the Cheetah...it was Bel Decal (seems others felt it was good since it has 4.5 stars out of 5 off 15 Amazon reviewers...too bad it's currently unavailable):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C9ZBTX6/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
 
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WOW! Thanks for all the info, now I are really edumacated! (Sorry I just had to throw that in there). Since I have a HP inkjet printer I was actually going to work with the photo cartridge and see what the results are. I know it does throw a clear coat on the print.

I will try it later and add to this post.

As usual, nothing works until you experiment!

Again thanks for all the info. I have to read the links and work on this TODAY! It is raining out so no launch operations will commence.
Bob

Now you be learned real good. :)

Hey Bob, I didn't even realize you were in Metra! I can bring some inkjet decal sheets for you to the next launch and you can check out the Cheetah up close if you'd like. I've sent you a PM.
 
Hi,

Just thought I'd add that you shouldn't dismiss the poor man's decals...adhesive full sheet label paper! I find it quick, cheap and has pretty good results for big rockets that are normally viewed from a distance anyway. Here's my L1 Sumo I finally got around to customizing (did it in about an hour last night and used an inkjet printer):

1/2/3) Find images on 'net, paste into Power point (or Paint or similar), adjust size, print out test pages, print onto label paper...be sure to set photo quality printing from computer print options menu and have the printer set for thick paper:
image-zhondasumo0jpg-600-072815173430109.jpg


4) Cut/trim, check fit on rocket before sticking. Option here is to clear coat first...I may try that next time to see if I can then use soapy water to make adjusting easier...right now it's stick or die!
5) Stick on, clear coat, viola! :)
image-hondasumo1jpg-600-072715174230963.jpg

image-hondasumo1bjpg-600-072815170130101.jpg


I find this works great for a rather plain rocket you like and have launched a few times...brings them back to life with "POP". :grin:

BTW - I added the straight and squiggly lines with a black Sharpie marker. I may also add another graphic to the nose (the one of a blurred open hand attack).
 
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Also note that the label paper is really good for when the background color is very bright (like this red) where thin decals would show color bleed-through.

This is not as good as vinyl, but a good cheap & easy option in my opinion. Negatives include once you stick it down it may not come up without ripping (when it's ready to apply down, I keep some of the backing in place and stick an edge down first), trying to get into creases/bends/crevices (where it can again rip) and there's some thickness to what is basically a sticker. You'll also need to clear coat, but you should do that for decals anyway.
 
Hi,

Just thought I'd add that you shouldn't dismiss the poor man's decals...adhesive full sheet label paper! I find it quick, cheap and has pretty good results for big rockets that are normally viewed from a distance anyway. Here's my L1 Sumo I finally got around to customizing (did it in about an hour last night and used an inkjet printer):

1/2/3) Find images on 'net, paste into Power point (or Paint or similar), adjust size, print out test pages, print onto label paper...be sure to set photo quality printing from computer print options menu and have the printer set for thick paper:
image-zhondasumo0jpg-600-072815173430109.jpg


4) Cut/trim, check fit on rocket before sticking. Option here is to clear coat first...I may try that next time to see if I can then use soapy water to make adjusting easier...right now it's stick or die!
5) Stick on, clear coat, viola! :)
image-hondasumo1jpg-600-072715174230963.jpg

image-hondasumo1bjpg-600-072815170130101.jpg


I find this works great for a rather plain rocket you like and have launched a few times...brings them back to life with "POP". :grin:

BTW - I added the straight and squiggly lines with a black Sharpie marker. I may also add another graphic to the nose (the one of a blurred open hand attack).


Seriously amazing work. Thanks for sharing that, I'm probably gonna spend half the weekend trying to do something similar! :)
 
Seriously amazing work. Thanks for sharing that, I'm probably gonna spend half the weekend trying to do something similar! :)

Wow, thanks for the serious compliment! :grin:

I should add that I've been making custom pics for fun for a long time, but I'm not a graphics artist (coincidentally my wife is). I started decades ago grabbing newspaper pics and then photocopying and putting my friends/employee's faces on them. When done right, you can't tell it's a copy! Kind of like caveman photoshop before photoshop. :) So while it would be more difficult, you can actually do this with just a color printer, some pictures (like from a magazine) and no computer!

The big trick is to take the time finding the right pics, sizing correctly and doing test pages to see how things fit. If you really want to go all out, you can even adjust colors, print, cut, assemble, tape, test fit, then scan it and print as a decal/sticker/etc. Sounds like a lot, but it flows quickly. Best luck to you!
 
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