I'm interested from the fellow ALPS printer owners any advice, programs and techniques they use for printing decals. As I have just got myself a new alps MD1000 as you can still buy them new downunder. Thanks in advance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2005 03:57AM by Myles Boon.

Myles a couple of fast points check out the groups that Rich mentioned if you decife to join one or more make certain you get a daily digest or else your mail box will be overflowing with post.

In all probability any graphic software you now have and are familar with would be the best choice for an application, it becomes a little ridiculous to buy expensive software- Photo shop -Corel etc if you plan on only making a few nice decals and for Text any text program -word -word perfect will be fine.

White is generally used as the undercoat for decals made using the regular inks for a little different effect try using silver as the first coat.

Try to avoid using metallic colors over the standard ones it has a tendancy to lift or smear.

Water slide the best paper I have found is from the Decal Connection sponsor at left. any questions please send PM
John

decal paper can also be purchased from papatango.com

the guys in the model club buy from him say it's really good, nice and thin. which is crucial when putting decals in 1/700 scale waterline ships.

MD's are nice printers. looking at the 5000 for myself. On the paper -- waterslide. You can yahoo or google and look around for various suppliers. Decal Connections - sponsor to the left sells paper and deals quite a bit with custom rod builders. Look for paper that is thick enough (mils) to be strong and easier to apply. Not too thick as to show through your expoxy. There are some self sticks as well that may work well but haven't used them. Also test the ink to make sure the epoxy will not smear it. It wouldn't be good if you applied the epoxy over the decal only to find the decal was a mess after the expoxy cures. If the ink is affected by the epoxy then spray some clear krylon over a decal (let the ink dry for a few hours first) and let set overnight then try the epoxy. This is likely not a problem with the MD -- definately a problem with inkjets.

Mark

john mentioned expensive software programs. when i was a mac geek, before i became a flyfishing geek (and now fly rod assembly geek) it was generally regarded a cool aspect that peripherals like flat bed scanners came bundled with software for editing images. often times, i would weed out scanners with subpar software (for my needs) and concentrate on those which came bundled (for free) with light versions of photoshop. i'm not sure this is still the case since i haven't shopped for computer stuff in years, but that could be an option for you if you need an image editing program to deal with jpegs, tiffs, etc.

eric
fresno, ca.