Is anyone printing white decals?

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Peartree

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I've printed my own non-white decals before, and I know that I can buy white decal paper, but it's still hard to print white print on a clear background for applications on dark, or black, paint.

I also remember that while ink for ALPS printers became unobtainium some years back.

So, is there anyone who is currently printing white print on clear decals at a price that isn't prohibitive? Specifically, I'm interested in printing whole sheets of logos and number sets for our model railroad club, but this information has obviously useful rocketry applications as well.
 
Hmm, need to find someone who will laser print with ghost white toner. A quick search didn’t turn up anything, but there must be someone out there who does it.

Hoping someone will come up with something, that would be a useful resource.
 
It's a bit on the expensive side, but I have had great results with custom dry transfers for my scale models. A sheet of logos and numbers like you describe could be done at a reasonable cost when amortized over the number of individual models one might make.

You'll need to create your own artwork in a vector format for best results (Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw). Once you have that artwork in hand a dry transfer vendor can help you. I use AllOut Graphics, a Canadian firm. They do great work!

https://www.allout-graphics.com
Depending on the number of copies you need, a short run of 250 genuine silkscreened water slide decal sheets is also a possibility. Microscale can help with that:

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=Custom
Nothing looks better than dry transfers, in my experience. If you'd like a basic introduction to the process, the basics are covered in a series of posts starting here: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/revisiting-the-estes-maxi-brute-v-2.140236/page-3#post-1704858

James
 
Stickershock23 just printed out white decals for my AMW Red FiberMax, to go on the black fins. They are the kill decals, tanks, jeeps, ships, even a palm tree, etc.
 
It's a bit on the expensive side, but I have had great results with custom dry transfers for my scale models. A sheet of logos and numbers like you describe could be done at a reasonable cost when amortized over the number of individual models one might make.

You'll need to create your own artwork in a vector format for best results (Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw). Once you have that artwork in hand a dry transfer vendor can help you. I use AllOut Graphics, a Canadian firm. They do great work!

https://www.allout-graphics.com
Depending on the number of copies you need, a short run of 250 genuine silkscreened water slide decal sheets is also a possibility. Microscale can help with that:

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=Custom
Nothing looks better than dry transfers, in my experience. If you'd like a basic introduction to the process, the basics are covered in a series of posts starting here: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/revisiting-the-estes-maxi-brute-v-2.140236/page-3#post-1704858

James
Interesting, but a 250 unit minimum is a lot.
 
Stickershock23 just printed out white decals for my AMW Red FiberMax, to go on the black fins. They are the kill decals, tanks, jeeps, ships, even a palm tree, etc.
Stickershock definitely has good stuff, but I'm not sure that vinyl is going to work for the tiny numbers on HO scale model trains. Waterslide is preferred, I think, and Mark doesn't do that ((currently).
 
The 250 unit minimum is just for waterslide decals. Dry transfers can be produced in single units.

Poke around on the AllOut Graphics website.

James
The problem with that is that I have zero (or less than zero) confidence in my ability to do dry transfers in a straight line and look even marginally good. Especially with lettering/numbering at scale sizes.
 
It's complicated but doable with white decal sheets. It requires converting the white background on the decal image to black or whatever color the rocket is. This worked well for the radiation sticker on my Mini Executioner. The logo decal is on the regular clear decal sheet and the silver of the fin is hand painted. The other fin is still black because I replaced the fin after hard landing.

1631128063088.jpeg
 
It's complicated but doable with white decal sheets. It requires converting the white background on the decal image to black or whatever color the rocket is. This worked well for the radiation sticker on my Mini Executioner. The logo decal is on the regular clear decal sheet and the silver of the fin is hand painted. The other fin is still black because I replaced the fin after hard landing.

View attachment 480915
I'm considering this option too. The difficulty is that you have to match the background color to the paint. That's a bit time consuming and fine for a one-off, but doesn't work for printing an whole sheet for club members to use.
 
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