I had been in contact with someone to make custom decals for me but he is not able to do so anymore. So now I am in the market again. Anyone got a good supplier? PM me so not to offend anyone. One question lurks at me. How difficult is it to make my own with white ink?? Will I need to buy a decal specific printer? Thanks! Sent from my Commando
White ink...that's the whole problem. Just about the only printer line that had white ink were Alps (they also had just about every other color including shiny gold and silver as I recall). I am pretty sure that you couldn't make white ink even if you tried and if it even worked at all in your printer, it wouldn't work more than a VERY little bit before it ruined the print head (ink jet only since lasers usually use a cartridge). Among the problems you will run across is that ink in ink jet printers is water soluble meaning it will fade and wash away when wet. Paper is white so there just isn't a 'need' for white ink. Something I've toyed around with as an idea is printing the color of the car (for example box car brown) on white decal paper to get the white lettering (using a color laser to solve the water soluble problem) but I just haven't felt the need to do it yet. There's still several people who do custom decal printing (almost all using Alps printers) if you do a search. I can't recommend anyone since I haven't had anything printed for me for years.
From what I know, could be wrong: White ink is the big rub as jamurer1 points out. However, even if you don't want any white in your decals, most ink jets use non-opaque inks for color, so your background will usually need to be white to get the right color. On the flip side, it does make them good for printing transparencies for projection in color. For now, you either need to buy decal paper that has a white background and trim carefully or go to a service that will silk screen them or use another process that uses opaque ink. There are some printers that are intended to replace silkscreening, but I don't know if they'd handle paper or only handle garments. And, I suspect the price would be a bit off putting (several 1000s of dollars). An alternative for some applications (emphasis:some) is to use a craft cutter like a Silhouette Cameo to cut one or more layers of stencil in adhesive vinyl. I've done that in O for painting the sides of brick buildings with big company names, but lifting a stencil with small detail off of the backer sheet is somewhere between frustrating and impossible. You can either paint the stencils the normal way by painting the cut out or paint the background your letter color, then apply the cut out letters (or other design) as a mask and paint to the correct background color, then peel the letters off when done. If you use transfer paper, you do not need those annoying lines in letters like O and B and everything stays lined up.
I think that's become the standard way now while the ALPS supply is drying up until something better comes along. You can get fairly decent results this way. A year or two ago I saw someone had come up with a unique way to do it, I seem to remember it being dry transfers, possibly the DecalPro Fx product. I'd be interested to know if anyone here has tried it - it looks interesting.. -Mike
Ted Freeman has done some really great custom decals for me in the recent past (both white and yellow). Highly recommended - teditor@bigpond.com Cheers, -Mark
I bought my decals from Rail Graphics (http://www.railgraphicsdecals.com/index.htm) After trying to make decals myself with an ink-jet printer I decided to go with a commercial supplier. It might not be the right answer for you depending on how many cars you intend to decal. I plan to have a fair number of home-road cars so it was a solution for me. Here's a couple of examples. I had my locomotive decals done in gold, the freight cars in white. George V.
+1 on Rail Graphics. They've been in business a long time, do quality work, and are easy to deal with.
Correct, thanks. Ted doesn't have a website, so just use the email addy to contact him. Cheers, -Mark
Hey look, here he is now! What up, Ted? Cheers, -Mark P.S. I just realized that it was Highball Graphics that did the DM&E decals for me, so disregard those. HG guy stopped responding to emails a while ago, so I don't know what's going on with him.
Microscale also does custom decals, although you'll have to deal with minimum quantities. (Details on their website, at www.Microscale.com) Dieter Zakas
So why is it when I use teditor@bigpond it always redirects of to Telstra.com? Confused here... Sent from my Commando
Its an email address, not a website. Sounds like a browser issue on your end. If I click it, it ask me if I want to do about 4 different options, all of which involve email from various email services or copy the email address.
Custom Decals rarupp@hotmail.com is very good for decals. Company name is Modern Rails Company, Ricky Rupp owner.
