Dear Rob, If you have a

Dear Rob,

If you have a color printer, would MicroMark white decal paper work?

http://www.micromark.com/white-decal-paper-for-ink-jet-and-laser-printers-and-copiers-5-sheets,7945.html

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

I can do that...

Rob,

Contact me off list at billy AT pdc.ca
I can make custom decals for you.

- Bill
 

I've really gotta hand it to

I've really gotta hand it to Bill!  Through his decal printing business, the sharpness of the decals exceeded my expectations. 

Edit: While I don't have the image anymore, I posted one showing a great difference in quality of resolution between the decals

The Handicapped sign is a microscale decal.  Nice and sharp.  The business class decal is from Bill, also very sharp.  However the Amtrak logo above is from one of the most well-known (and until recently only) custom decal shops around.  The edges are terrible.

When I started looking for a white decal custom printer service, I didn't know much about the process or what was required.  So I contacted the maker of the logo decals I had traded with another modeler. (the Amtrak logo one above).  He also turned out to be the only custom decal printer for model trains according to google. (until Bill saved the day!)

Well from the get-go this other guy made it fell like he really didn't want or care about my business.  And after a few emails, I was encourged to do what most people apparently do, print their own decals on plain paper, and *mail them* to hiim to scan and run on his state-of-the-art screen printing machine....  So even if my printer is not that great, I'm supposed to blow it up to double size which isn't always that easy to do and this sub-par print will be used as the basis for professional looking decals. (this was the AH-HA! moment where I realize the Amtrak logo looks so fuzzy on the edges because the original customer printing job was bad and all the different formats this poor logo must have gone through.)  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you print an image on paper from a digital source, it is now what we call "analog".  And if we digitize again with a scanner that analog image we've now got is a poor copy of the original digital file.

At the danger of making this post too long, and too unfair a rant against the custom decal company  that shall not be named,(but man I am a bit miffed truth be told)! ...Back to Bill who I can't thank enough!  He was so helpful in advising me on how to get my photoshop files converted to a format he could use and making sure they were the right size and of decent quality.  Customer service was excellent.  He responded to emails promptly.  My file went digital all the way from my computer to his printer.

And his price was extremely reasonable.  He even offered to help me reformat my graphics for a very nominal fee if I couldn't get it to work on my own. (i eventually did).  I received a FULL PAGE of decals layed out exactly how I designed it, with enough decals to do several TRAIN SETS.  For this price I would not have even received ONE train cars worth of decals from that other guy..  in order to do this many cars I would have had to shell out something like $500. 

So agian, BIG THANK YOU TO BILL. I would definitely have Bill do more custom prints for me in the future!  If you need some quality decals done affordably, he's your man!!  Sorry to gush, just really happy to have a good ending to this whole project that had me pricing my own decal printer at one point in frustration.

Best,

Rob

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

Wow, thanks Rob!

start off big

The best way to get a sharp image for this sort of work is draw it 2 to 4 times bigger than you need, then reduce it in size.  That way you will end up reducing the size of the errors and end up with a clearer and cleaner image.  You just need to be careful not to start off with lines that are very thin, because they will end up several times thinner, and may not be reproducible.  There is a limit to the resolution of screen printing processes.

Jurgen offers good advice. 

Jurgen offers good advice.  Start large!  

BUT... my experience is the oversize original to be reduced for final output has limitations:  Once upon  a time we used photographic processes for these graphic productions...   Reproducing a curve was easy, as the resolution of photographic materials was limited to the 'graininess' of the materials... often in excess of 10,000  points per inch.  (just think of those Kodak murals in Grand Central terminal  -  they started out as large format photos... usually 2x2 inches!)   Ink on paper was sloppier.  

These days, with digital scanning and printing, that resolution is gone...  the neatness of curves often gives way to pixel-representations of those neat lines.  

Thus... Look for the finest quality (aka, Resolution) printer output you can locate... (That ALPS sounds tempting!)

Can anyone recommend a custom dry-transfer material?  That's now hard to find, too.

Alps printer

Yeah, it's a real shame that you can't buy the Alps printer anymore, because I would be so all over getting one.  Printing in white is the Holy Grail for model railroad lettering, and every other method is painfully complex compared to the Alps.  Maybe something like that will become available again someday.

Back in the first year of MRH

Back in the first year of MRH there's an advertiser: Pulsar, that provides a white and metalic dry transfer making process. It's more involved than making white decals with an ALPs printer, but it you need lots of custom white or metallic lettering, it could be an option.

See:  Pulsar DecalPro system.

I need white decals also!

I need white decals made for my railroad also, Mr. Bill Brillinger.  If you are interested contact me, bobmarrelli@lycos.com

Please and thank you,

BM

decals

Bill, I will soon be needing decals to personalize my rolling stock.  Would you mind letting me know how to get in touch with you ?

oldnslo@gmail.com

thanks, bob

Vector, the only way to fly

The best method is to create the art with vector graphics. Then sharpness is absolutely perfect in the art file. The printing device becomes the limiting factor to crispness, not the art. Create the art with Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw or some Internet freeware equivalent. Raster images (bitmap pictures) will always produce inferior results compared to vector graphics regardless of how large a raster image you start with.

White Decals

I just received some decals from Bill Brillinger and they look great. I needed some numbers, letters, and the harold for the Southern Pacific narrow gage in Owens Valley in Fn3 scale. I created the harold using the Visio drawing program and then imported it into MS Word. I found a font called Railroad Roman on the internet and used that to create the lettering and numbers that I needed. I then contacted bill and emailed the file. After a couple of emails back and forth to fine tune, I have my 8.5x11 sheets of decals. He needs 1/2" margin around the printing, and can do single or double pass on the printing. The single is probably sharper and fine for weathered objects, and the double is a denser brighter white. I ordered 2 sheets, 1 single and 1 double. Frankly I couldn't see any difference in sharpness, but I did not get the microscope out. They look fantastic. His email is billy@pdc.ca. I hope the (at) sign goes thru because it didn't in his earlier post and I had to do a little creative reading to get it.

I am very pleased

Mike

White decals

   I read about a new DYI decal film that you can print up and when it dries after application  it turns white. Any one else read about it? I'll try to find it and post the results here.

Mike D

I'm pretty sure he wrote his address they way he did to avoid getting registered by the spam bots that is constantly searching the internet for email addresses (to spam).

It's ok

My address is all over the web's anyway

decal film

I just got the stuff you aRe thinking of..its from HobbyCal. Non printed areas dry white 

HobbyCal decal paper

How does that stuff work?  And how it is different than just printing on white decal paper?

hobbycal paper

Have not tried it yet. But it says it will dry white. Will let you know how well it works. 

HobbyCal

From what I just read, it is no different than printing on White Decal paper.

Great for signs and such, perhaps not so great for reporting marks and lettering.

The difference with HobbyCal...

....is that it will also dry clear. The instructions say to add a bit of canola oil to the areas you want clear and it will dry clear. Have not tried that yet either.

white decals

Have you tried

Steam And Things; http://www.steamandthings.com

Also do the art work

James