Bespoke water slide decals

[Harrier Mate]

Hi guys,

Does anyone have any experience of making bespoke water slide decals using special inkjet paper.... looking to make some fairly complex motifs for my Flair Fokker DVII.

[Alan Gorham_]

I have used clear decal paper to make small stencilling text for my Hurricane. The text size was too small for my vinyl cutter to be able to cut paint masks.

Results were adequate but I prefer painting where possible as I can get better results. What sort of things are you looking to do?

I'd be interested to hear from others who have had good results.

[Erfolg]

I have made water slide decals on my Gee Bee.

Are these the types you are thinking of?

[Engine Doctor]

The ink jet water slide paper may have improved over time. I used it when it came out some years ago and it took the print very well but the adhesive was very poor and the transfers kept peeling off when put onto Lightspan unlike the transfers we used when we were kids that really stuck. Have used the self adhesive inkjet clear and metallic with good results

[Andy48]

You need to spray the transfer paper with acrylic varnish once printed, the thickness of the varnish tends to have a big impact on the quality. Too thin, and it is too fragile when wet, too thick and while it transfers well, it will peel shortly after.

[Alan Gorham_]

I haven't had problems with either fragility or peeling, I used acrylic artists spray varnish by Pebeo as I figured it would be gentle on the transfer.

My average results came from the fact that, despite placing the transfer over a very glossy surface, I still experienced a bit of "silvering" of the clear film. I can put modern transfers on a plastic kit and they look painted on, while the inkjet transfers are very obviously transfers.

[Erfolg]

A lot has to do with the supplier, with respect to how easy things are.

I now spray as Andy does with acrylic (WBV) varnish, to increase strength. In the recent past I have had a white transfer, that was fragile and thin, at least in my hands. Hence the practice of increasing the strength.

I also have had the same issue of poor adhesion, long term, with some old decals, ready made. Now I also paint the area where the decal is to be fixed with WBV. I then just dab of any residue varnish.

I cannot claim to be an expert, as I have only undertaken the process a few times. Some that I have made and others pre made as supplied.

[Harrier Mate]

[Martian]

As said get decent inkjet transfer paper, print at high quality . Then experiment first before committing to your plane

[Harrier Mate]

Oops.... I didn’t post the explanation. The dragon on the side of the Picture above is what I’m looking to replicate.

[Don Fry]

Alan makes a good point. Some acrylic paint pens, masks, a brush, and planning, will do a "proper" painted surface. And it is not subject to cracking , peeling.

The originals are not as good as the pictures we see as 1/72 depictions nowadays. I would at least think about doing my own attempt. No one will laugh. What do you wish to do.

if it's that one about a tug of war, 7 Swabians? bets off

[Chris Bott - Moderator]

Have a look at this article elsewhere on the forum.

[Don Fry]

Posts crossed. Nice scheme.

Ask yourself, cut a mask, for the white. Leave to dry. Apply black with an acrylic pen. Mess up, if the white is dry, it will rub off, with solvents . A rub off, black on white will leave a bit of grey, but it's a German aircraft at the end of a lost war. Looks like smoke.

[stu knowles]

My experience has been that decal paper is good for small stuff and, as stated above, they will fall off unless sealed with some form of clear 'varnish'. If the model is much over 1/72nd scale, I think that you will struggle to replicate the Dragon using a decal.

However, if you draw out he basic shape on paper, cut out the silhouette and paint it all white. the detail is all black and can be done with Humbrol or even a felt tip marker. It will come a lot better than you might think.

[Geoff S]

It's OK if you're an artist, I guess, but I'm so far from that I expect my efforts would look dreadful. My Sopwith Pup scheme has a Kiwi on the sides which I'm aiming to do wite with painted detail in black which I think I may be able to manage but the numbers on the tail are black with a white outline and I'm wondering how to do them. The roundals have a white outline, too to make then standout against the blue fuselage. (see my thread here to see what I mean)

It'll be a few weeks before I get to the point of doing the detailed finishing touches but it's getting closer.

Geoff

[Monz]

I've used Laser water transfer decal paper run through my HP home laser printer. Everything on my DVII except the pink paint was laser printed decals over the tissue. I drew everything up in Photoshop. I used a combination of clear and white paper. The clear gives some transparency while the white is opaque, though does take some planning as domestic printers don't print white! The advantage of laser printed decals is you don't have to seal them with anything - Print, dunk, apply.

[Don Fry]

How big is that bit of flying art?

[Broken Prop]

The article that Chris refers to above is very good, having been penned by the much missed Big Bandit. I have always followed his tips using laserjet paper from Crafty Computer Paper which, as Monz suggests, requires no overcoating.

The only thing that I would add is that the decals are always shiny, which might not look good on a warbird. I don't build those so I cannot comment, but in order to limit the amount of clear border visible beyond the decal I always cut the clear part back as close to the decal as possible.

One application that works very well is to print lines of rivets on a clear background sheet using a slightly darker colour than the underlying paint and then cut them up to suit.

They pass the '3 foot' rule quite well.

Pete

[Harrier Mate]

Monz,

amazing scheme. And so much cheaper than Arizona Models fabric (about £150 for just the wings). Could you tell me more about that technique. You have clearly covered the model in a base layer first.... plain tissue or fabric? And then applied the printed lozenge to tissue???

[Harrier Mate]

Worth buying a laser printer just to achieve that result!

[Erfolg]

I do not believe that the dragon is an issue with respect to its shape, nor the detail, in itself.

These are the decals that I produced for my Gee Bee.

To a large extent it all comes down to the printer, its printing resolution and also its ability to scan, again resolution. The other issue then can be your art package. Unfortunately both of my preferred art packages are no longer on my PC. I have struggled with GIMP, it is obviously a very good package, the problem is with me, and how it does things, because controlled by the right person, it is great.

As you can see I had several attempts before I produced satisfactory results, that is to me. I must emphasize that the issue is me, not the process. Although not all Decal sheets are of the same quality, be it clear or white.

Returning to my decals, there is a mixture of small print and art work in the form of the Panther.

The issue of gloss or not glossy, is a non issue on our models, I finish the decals with either gloss, satin or matt WBV. I tend now to cover the whole model now in WBV as i find that on its own, Acrylic is not as durable as the old Humbrol Enamel. Humbrol enamel was the only oil based paint system that I found to be easy to use, both in spraying and cleaning, all the other products i tried were pants.

Edited By Erfolg on 13/12/2019 11:40:12

[Erfolg]

Another set of decals that I have produced, Perhaps not the most taxing, although the chrome effect "H" came out well.

[Capt Kremen]

I've used a 'hybrid' method - printed decal paper + clear vinyl scrap (from a kit decal sheet).

Having a Multiplex 'Fun Cub', I fancied a fun scale 'Piper J3' scheme including the iconic cub bear insignia that adorns the tail of those yellow J3 aircraft.

After downloading the image from the net, I printed it on decal paper. Then, using clear self-adhesive vinyl from the surround area of the MPX kit insignia, covered the 'cub', allowing sufficient surround to attach to the model.

After several seasons, the 'FunCub' displays the usual foam model 'hangar rash' but the insignia remains firmly attached and in perfect nick with no peeling or curling.

For Foam models, this would seem a very practical and certainly durable option as water slide decals alone, tend not to adhere long term to these surfaces.

[Monz]

Posted by Don Fry on 12/12/2019 20:27:41:

How big is that bit of flying art?

1/10th scale, rubber powered.

[Monz]

Posted by Harrier Mate on 12/12/2019 21:40:46:

Monz,

amazing scheme. And so much cheaper than Arizona Models fabric (about £150 for just the wings). Could you tell me more about that technique. You have clearly covered the model in a base layer first.... plain tissue or fabric? And then applied the printed lozenge to tissue???

The model is covered in jap tissue with a coat of dope to seal it. I built a test frame to see how the decal would react to it. On the test frame I had different sections with different treatments - non shrinking dope, banana oil, shrinking dope, matt, semi gloss and gloss varnish. In the end it was three coats of very thinned Tamiya gloss varnish over one coat of shrinking dope that worked the best.

I drew up the lozenge pattern in Photoshop to match the lozenge on the reference aircraft, along with the other decals like stencils, markings etc and scaled it to match the three view I built from. Where there were white stencils I did a light grey decal and then hand painted over that with white enamel. The white rib tapes are all 2mm wide strips of white decal paper applied individually. That and the hand painted stencils were an exercise in patience!

The domestic laser MFP's are a much better investment over any domestic inkjet.