Just printed my first decal using inkjet decal material and inkjet printer.When I put the decal in water to remove it from the backing paper the lettering washed off. What is going wrong?
Darren Tucker

Darren,
You need to first seal the decal. I personally use Krylon clear that I get from Home Depot. I make all my own decals and have never had a problem. Randy.

DARREN WOULD LIKE TO TRY THIS CAN YOU GIVE ME MORE INFORMATION.

I've heard it's not possible to print white lettering on clear background material, is this correct? I like to number my rods and I'd rather put a custom decal on instead of writing in a white paint pen.

I don't think any inkjet printer is capable of printing in white. That's why colors printed on a clear decal material disappear on a dark blank, too. They first need a white undercoat printing, then the color on top of that so it's visible over the dark backgrounds. I use an Alps printer to accomplish this task. They have white cartridges available and work very well for waterslide decal work.

Putter
Williston, ND

Any ballpark figures on how much this would cost do start up your own? Is it worth it if you're only building a few dozen rods a year or is it easier to get a decal maker to print what you want?

The machines can't be / aren't sold in the US as new. That's the biggest problem. On-line @#$%& is where I purchased mine. There can be problems with doing that, but I had none when I did it. It's the only thing I've ever bought that way in my life, BTW. They can be bought as new, but without warranty (some goofy tariff deal or something - just a guess on that), from Australia.

The convenience of being able to print a waterslide whenever I need one is WELL worth it to me, I guess. I've actually ordered a new one just for a back-up machine because I am worried that if the one I'm using ever broke down, I wouldn't know what to do without it, now.

I can make decals of photos of anything (with a little work on the 'puter first) and also two colored, bordered decals of my own designs which is kinda of neat, too. Over top of marbling, the bordered, two colored ones are really the way to go.

I would guess, getting one with some cartridges from an on-line @#$%& might still be doable for around the $250 mark or so. Just a ballpark figure, though. I've heard there's getting to be less and less of them available, so that price may have gone up somewhat.

They have separate cartridges for each of the available colors; metallic in gold, silver, blue (cyan), and red (magenta). Standard colors in white, black, yellow, blue, green, and "multicolor". Also, there is a clear finish cartridge for printing photographs on standard papers to put a glossy covering over it. Might have missed some, but that's all the ones that I have here.

For most persons, a decal making site is probably the way to go, but for me, I'm glad that I made the leap into this.

Putter
Williston, ND

I too use the Alps printer (after talking to Putter) and use it for making all my own metallic decals. I got mine from Australia for about $300 plus shipping. It was new without the warranty and I have had it about a year or so with no problems whatsoever. I think it's worth the money if you do a lot of decals. Randy.

[www.pulsar.gs]

If Alps does not plan to support for the future this is an alternative that does work. There are several pictures on the Photo Board of results that look quite promising.