I just picked up an ALPS to make some custom decals, and have made a set of Z Scale decals that came out real nice, but I want to seal them so I dont ruin them before use. I have heard of people spraying Krylon clear, Brushing on Model Flex liquid decal film, or using Dullcote, and Glosscote on the freshly printed decal paper. Which method of any listed or not do you use, How satisfied are you with it, And why did you choose that method? Thanks, Robert
I use Microscale Liquid Decal Film,sprayed through an airbrush on top of the finished artwork to seal the inks.It seems to work,if you look at some of my custom work in my Railimage Album.(P.S. do not dilute)
I have an Alps printer, which I have not got around to using yet! When I get the artwork ready, I will get some decals printed, and remember the above advice
I'll try some Microscale Decal Film then. I have an Aztek airbrush with the gray nozzle (general purpose) but it seems to not like to spray thick paints. Is the Microscale stuff thin enough for a double action airbrush, or should I get a nozzle designed for acrylics? Thanks, Robert
What does it cost to do a sheet of decals this way? I have a mythical RR that I want some done to represent. Just numbers and letters in a fairly bright yellow. Boxcab E50
Decal paper is about $1.50 a sheet, and it probably takes $1.00 of ink to do a full sheet of decals. I would suspect that the overcoat spray don't go very far, so there is probably .50 cents for overcoat. So if you use your inkjet printer, It's about $3 for a full sheet of decals. The deal with the ALPS printer is that it prints white ink. It has been out of production for several years so you have to find them off ebay, and many of the guys that belong to the Alps Yahoo group have several of these printers in case one breaks down. The auctions usually end for $200-600 dollars depending on the percieved condition of these printers, and you really do not have any viable options if you want to print white decals. The next runner up, a Roland printer starts at $5000 to print white ink.
The decal film can be sprayed through your Aztek,which is what I use.It last quite a long time,shoot at a low PSI,around 15,and smooth even coats,two should do it.Wait about 15 to 20 minutes between coats.
Bel Decals has the Inkjet Decal paper, and if you buy bulk it's cheaper, but about $15 for a 10 pack. Bel Decals
How much to make me a sheet of custom decals? Boxcab E50 [ 01. July 2003, 07:51: Message edited by: BoxcabE50 ]
I have been using Rail Graphics to get my custom decals made. I do the artwork myself and email it to them. About a week or two later I have them. The cost is cheap for what you get. It cost me about $35 for 25 sheets. If you do the artwork you can cram as much on the sheet as you want. They use a really great thin, but strong decal film. I would love to have an Alps, but for the little bit of custom work I have left to do it is more cost effective for me to use Rail Graphics, even if it means I will have lots of sheets left over (some of the leftovers I trade off to friends private road decal sheets). My first run of custom decals from Rail Graphics where designed to decal just coal hoppers. I made all of the data and reporting marks that I would need for a 50-ton hopper. I made a number jumble that would allow me to only have to have to decals for each number, the first have (the series prefix) and the last have of sequential numbers. I was able to get four hoppers of decals on each sheet. For $35 I decaled almost 100 hoppers (a few sheets I made some mistakes while decaling).
Since decals come in many different sheet sizes, what size sheet did the railgraphics come on? I think my printer will print on a couple different sheet sizes, but I never expermented on it yet. I know how hard it is to do artwork, as it took me about 8 hours spread across 3 days just to do the "Main Street of the Northwest" slogan for my Z Scale F7 ABA set. It is however line art and completely scaleable to any size, unlike bitmap art. The monad only took an hour, and has 4 layers, a white, a black, a magenta, and a yellow. I can see how other colors would be a problem because of color mixing requirements.
You can pick your own size, to some degree, and Rail Graphics will cut them to that size. The charge you by the square inch you use, and you can fill that area all the way to the edge and pack it as tight as you want. http://www.railgraphicsdecals.com/ One thing to keep in mind, Rail Graphics prints the decals and small type might fill in if your font is bold type. For small data I used a very thin font. After printing the the font thickness was just what I wanted. A have seen some web sites that will do a one time custom print decal, and I believe they print it with an Alps printer.
