My first, fumbling attempts at home-made decals

[Marc_G]

Hi folks,

I figured I'd post here a thread as I work for the first time with making homebrew decals. It's actually just a single decal, a wrap, which makes it harder. This is for my SEMROC Ranger build, documented HERE.

In the Ranger thread I described how I created the roll pattern graphic, so I won't double post it here.

I picked up some Testors Decal Paper (White) and just need to print the black roll pattern over it. Easier said than done.

I remembered to set the printer to high-quality prints, and for a first pass decided to use "Photo Paper-Glossy" settings. I have a Canon Pixma MP700 printer, so it is a run-of-the-mill inkjet process. Actually I rather like the printer, but it's not a dye-sub or laser printer. I would love to just take the decal paper to work and laser print the black onto it, but I don't trust the paper not to melt in the laser printer causing all manner of grief. There's no rule against low level use of business equipment for personal tasks like this, but doing something risky to the printer isn't something I'm willing to do.

So, I print the first page with high quality, glossy photo settings, and eagerly await the output. As it is coming out it looks great. Nice and sharp, deep blacks. But there's a blemish on one side, and a smaller one on the other. D'oh! Maybe you can just barely see them here.



I went off to work thinking about it. I came to the conclusion [later proven wrong] that maybe I printed with too much ink and was getting some sort of sag effect by the over-wet ink on the paper.

I tried again, this time using high quality PLAIN PAPER settings. The decal printed, not quite as high contrast but still looking good and sharp. But on close inspection, there was a defect at just about the same spot!

However, closer inspection revealed that it wasn't some weird sag, it was a fingerprint!



How dare the manufacturers of the paper not monitor their process, to prevent this! ... was my first thought. Then it hit me, that I probably did it myself.

I put half my brain into analytical mode and let the rest of it automatically take out another piece of decal paper, while watching myself do it. Yup, I was about to put a big ole' thumbprint right there. Stopped myself just in time.

My next printout, carefully handling the paper, was flawless.

I'll continue the saga tonight.

 

[Barracuda]

Nice looking job to me,haven't used decal paper yet just peel-n-stick vinyl

 

[Marc_G]

So, what next, now that I have these decals printed black-on-white-decal film?

I need to seal in the water soluble inkjet ink, but don't have any decal film. I've heard lots of people talk about using various clear coats. I plan on eventually overcoating the model with clear lacquer, so I wouldn't want to put any enamel on the decals.

I decided to cut the second decal sheet into several strips and try different things on it, since it isn't usable with the big fingerprint. The first one I printed really could be used; the fingerprint on it isn't as obvious, so I held it in reserve in case the "perfect printout" one failed during application.

The first strip I cut out, I taped to a piece of cardboard and took it outside. Note, I usually coat commercial decals (from Excelsior, or Estes, or Fliskits, or...) with Valspar Clear High Gloss Lacquer. I get improved handling and toughness during application. I usually do two to three light coats that go on pebbly at first and add up to a complete coat, but that don't flow out. I've had bad luck if I do heavy coats that flow, as it is liable to peel off. But light, pebbly coats have worked awesome.

So I was expecting to hit the strip with a light coat of lacquer mist and see the pebbly dotted surface. Instead, the lacquer flattened right out immediately. It was uncanny. I don't know whether it absorbed into the paper and flattened, or flattened on the surface due to surface tension effects. But it was cool. A little while later I hit it with a second coat and got the usual pebbly surface, albeit not as pebbly as I'm used to. I have good hopes for this technique.

Next, I took two more strips and painted them with foam brushes with two water-based treatments:



1. Liquitex High Gloss Clear Varnish, soaked into a foam brush and wiped down the decal.
2. Future (Pledge with Future Shine) 100% straight from the bottle, soaked into a foam brush, and similarly wiped down.

The results were amazingly different.

The varnish (water based!) has a relatively high surface tension. It's prone to beading up, in other words. As I pulled the foam brush down the decal, it didn't go terribly smoothly, and it instantly stripped the inkjet ink off in places. and there were voids in the coverage; I went back and filled them in and got a smeared mess.

Much chastened, I was a bit more careful with the Future, but it went on very slickly with just a teeny tiny bit of streaking in one place. Coverage was total in a single pass.

After a few minutes of drying, it was obvious the varnish was getting worse. IT shrank and crackled. The Future just much better with only the tiniest bit of crinkling. This picture with flash really brought out the contrast; to the naked eye the future decal is still usable.



I've ordered some Microscale decal film and will do a similar test on it to compare. But meanwhile the clear lacquer decal dried perfectly (no crinkle at all, it looks beautiful) so I did the "real" decal with it. I let it dry overnight, prior to doing some application testing.

Marc

 

[Spooks]

Stickershock23.com

Can't be the price, can't be the hands on customer service!!

I used to hate vinyl, best thing to ever happen to a rocket!!

 

[Marc_G]

I'm partial to waterslides for BT60 and smaller, so Gordy at Excelsior gets a lot of business from me. For this wrap, I probably should have gone vinyl, though. No worries!

 

[Marc_G]

The decals were thoroughly dry the next day.

I cut test samples of the lacquer test strip, and the Future test strip, and purposefully made sure my cut marks crossed ink lines. I had read that sometimes edges of homebrew decals will bleed if the ink sandwiched between the decal film and the clear overcoat is exposed to the water during application, at the edge where the "sandwich" exposes a thin ink line.

I didn't see any sign of bleeding in my test applications. I used the separator sheet in a 24 pack of soda cans. This white-coated thin cardboard makes an excellent paint or decal application test medium, and is free!



The water I used (pure tap water, nothing added) was comfortably warm but definitely not on the hot side. The decals were soaked for about 20 seconds then removed, positioned on the test sheet, and slid off. I purposefully chose a spot that was not flat, to test conformity to the surface with the decal material for the larger of the two lacquer pieces.

I was very pleased with the results.

 

[Marc_G]

Satisfied with the results, I carefully cut out the lacquer-sealed Ranger roll pattern decal and soaked it.

Application of such a large wrap is outside my experience, and it did not turn out great. I had pre-measured for position but with all my attempts to remove wrinkles and such, the final position was a bit low, exposing a white area just below the nose cone. The pattern also wasn't centered exactly where I wanted it relative to the paint stripes, and some wrinkles remained. I almost took it off and threw it away, but in the end I decided to keep it. The rest of the rocket isn't perfect either, and I learned A LOT in doing this project. Here is a picture. Note the Ranger name decal is a second waterslide, provided by Semroc, applied over the white roll pattern one I made. YEs, I should have included the Ranger name when I printed mine, but wasn't thinking ahead.



Here's what I learned:

1. A waterslide decal isn't appropriate for a 7" long roll pattern, no matter who makes the decal. The Testors paper performed fine; the problem is applying such a thing. Either a printed wrap on adhesive paper or vinyl would have been a better choice.

2. Sealing with Valspar high gloss lacquer worked fine for my application, giving me tough decals with no-bleed edges based on my Canon inkjet printer.

3. There were no problems cutting the decals or removing them from the backing paper.

4. Definitely use high res printing and glossy photo paper printing settings to get enough ink down.

5. KEEP YOUR GRUBBY MITTS OFF THE DECAL SIDE OF THE PAPER. Fingerprints cause tears.

6. Homebrew decals are definitely doable and fun. But, vendors like Excelsior for waterslides (who I've worked with extensively) and Stickershock (looking forward to, for a larger project down the road) for vinyl bring a lot of artistic capability and have the equipment to do "white on clear" decals made with more professional equipment and are often the best choice. These guys rock.

I hope this has been helpful. I will be doing a downscale of the Ranger, sort of, and will work on improved decal creation and application based on what I learned here.

Marc