Waterslide Decal Paper

[hof00]

Hi All,

Does anyone have any experience using Waterslide Decal Paper?

 

Looking to create markings for my Bismarck perhaps.... is that a good idea?

 

I'm a little confused with information regarding this medium:

 

Coloued paper seems to be available - Is it possible to just cut shapes from the sheet and use directly?

 

Does the paper need to be printed first?

 

Any advice very welcome.

 

Cheers....HOF.

 

 

 

[mtaylor]

You might ping Denis @popeye the sailor.  He's been doing a lot with making decals.

[Mercator]

I am using home made water slide decals for some very complicated heraldic design on a medieval Teutonic Knight Standard bearer on horseback.

I am using blank water slide decal paper and a Canon Pixma photo printer with the cartridges for photo printing ( CLI are the cartridge for photo and

PGI are the one for regular printing). I download the design I want then reduce it to the correct dimension. When it come to apply the decal, use warm water, trim as close as possible from the design, apply over a gloss surface (you can apply a dulcoat later) also good to use a decal solution such as micro sol and micro set so it conform and adhere well to the surface on which you apply the decal. Be aware of the law in your country concerning the reproduction of printed material. I am not using any commercial reproduced heraldic design but what is available on the Teutonic Order website.

[hof00]

Thank you Gents,

All good information....

(I'll PM Denis also.)

 

I need to continue the research. 🙂

 

Cheers....HOF.

[wefalck]

The problem comes when you need white markings, as no (home) printer prints with white ink. For that you may have to go to a commercial printing house that caters for hobby applications.

[Roger Pellett]

I think that I read somewhere that white waterslide decal paper is available.  To use this you print the background black, or whatever color you need and the letters remain white.  Has anyone done this?

[wefalck]

Would only work, if you could print exactly the colour you needed. Never works, not even even with black and white.

 

Of course there is white decal paper on the market.

[Tankerman]

On 3/4/2022 at 5:30 PM, Roger Pellett said:

I think that I read somewhere that white waterslide decal paper is available.  To use this you print the background black, or whatever color you need and the letters remain white.  Has anyone done this?

 

I have used this method on several of my models and show two examples below:

 

The T2 tanker is the very old Revell kit at around 1/450th. scale and I wanted to show it as one of the many T2s owned by the company I sailed with. The company logo was downloaded form the web. The "Caltex Glasgow" and port of registry in the correct font and size ( less than 2mm in this case } were added to the file over a black background. The file was then printed on to a white decal waterslide transfer paper by 'Experts Choice' using a domestic inkjet printer. Once the ink was dry the sheet was sprayed with a clear acrylic varnish to seal it, after which the images were carefully cut from the sheet and applied to the model.

The tractor unit is a conversion of the standard AMT 1/25th. kit of the White Freightliner to represent the ones operated by Carolina Freight. The logo on the door is a commercially available decal but the fleet name on the roof deflector and front bumper, the fleet number and legal lettering are generated in a 'pages' file on a Mac to the correct size and font, given a red background  and printed off on white decal paper. The red print colour matched the red paint I used on the cab.

I hope this helps you HOF.

 

 

[wefalck]

How did you do the colour-matching, by trial and error with the colour settings in the file?

[Tankerman]

Very much by trial and error wefalck, I was lucky that the red on the truck was a good match.

 

Chris

[Roger Pellett]

Thanks, very nice models.