Could someone out there please advise the preferred printer for making decals? I believe that this issue is finding a printer that will print white. I have heard that there may be a Kodak product that can do so. The only other product I recall is the long not available Alps device. Many thanks.
While it’s not really printing in white, I have had good luck using Evan Designs decal paper to print a color background around white (actually no ink printed) lettering. It does take a bit of experimentation to adjust the printed background color to match the rolling stock but it can be done. I would imagine the same technique can be done on other white background decal paper as well.
I like the Evan Designs decal paper because it performs as advertised. Print with any inkjet printer and the ink stays put without any sealer. The only time I have ever managed to smudge a decal I made using this paper was when I couldn’t get one aligned right and repeatedly applied Solvaset to get the decal to move again. However, the Solvaset dissolved the paint behind the decal too so I don’t blame Evan Designs for any smudging – totally my fault! If you want a clear background on your decals, just set the decals on the model and spray with DulCote. The solvents in the DulCote will cause the white background to turn clear permanently (the background normally turns clear when you wet the Evan Designs decal paper but returns to opaque white as the decal dries). Keep this in mind when using this paper to create white lettering. Use only an acrylic clear finish over these decals if the background or lettering is to remain white!
Laser printers will produce better results than inkjet printers.
As far as I know, the only way to actually print white is to use an Alps printer.
You can play tricks, though. If you print with a garden-variety printer on clear decal paper, you can then apply the decal over a white background, or a white-painted spot on the background you’ve actually got:
This works well for nice, rectangular stuff like this where you can trim the edges easily. It’s a lot harder for printing letters or numbers, though.
They also make white-background decal paper. Again, though, the devil is in the edges.
If you can closely color-match the outer non-white edges of your decal to the surface (freight car, tender, building, whatever) then you can cover up the edges with a bit of weathering and get a presentable result.
I was talking to a guy in the industry, and hie said that there is no reason he could think of, other than cost/demand, that an inkjet cartridge couldn’t be filled with white ink, your printer would just think that it was black ink, ie., black in the image prints out as white on the paper.
It took a good amount of trial and error but I was finally able to use Photoshop to adjust the background color to match a set of data only boxcars I have. I then use white decal paper to create the white lettering for my freelanced railroad. One of the challenges is that the hue you see on your monitor will not be quite the same as what comes off on your printer. What I did was adjust the color to what appeared to be close then created several bands that were slightly darker and lighter than it and then figuring out which was closest to the boxcar color when printed off. Once I got the shade correct, I could create my logo and whatever lettering I wanted.
Did this guy suggest where you could get white ink that would be compatible with an ink jet printer? Works great in theory but not in practice. Ink jet inks have to be extremely fine to be sprayed out of the jet in the printer head. White ink would have to be extremely thick to be opaque. There probably isn’t any commercial demand for such inks so I doubt if we’ll ever see them for hobby use.
There used to be a company that made third party cartridges in all kinds of crazy colors (florescent, etc). There have to be other needs for white printing apart from modelers.
Can’t remember the name of the company though. Went color laser about 5 years ago and never looked back.
The Alps printer is or was the only one that printed white ink. I’m not sure that’s an option any more because from what I can find, the model MD5000 was the only printer that did white and it’s discontinued, but I may be wrong. I did come across one other printer that prints white, but it’s way, way out of our league. It’s a large format flatbed printer that uses UV-setting inks and is designed for the commercial printing market. If you Google “white printer ink” you will find some interesting articles on why printing white is so difficult.
This topic has been debated many times before on here…usually with the same results and always with the same answers. To start, the Alps printers are still available as are the inks for them. Kodak, several years ago, bought the rights to sell the alps printers in the US under the Kodak First Check name. It was nothing more than a rebadged MD5000 with an extreemly expensive($4000-$4500) software package. I am not sure if they still own the rights but, the alps is not offically sold here in the states any more. There is a company called, http://www.alps-supplies.com/ that sells them. The new model is the MD5500.
As far as the white ink controversy…
Several years ago on the Yahoo Groups Alps Decal group there was a long running discussion on the merits of laser and inkjet conpatible white. Several inkjet manufacturers were contacted and it was determined that there was no indication they were interested in such a small nich product to make it worth their while. There was some hope for the laser croud a couple of years ago in that someone was offering cartridges filled with white toner to fit a specific laser printer. I have heard mixed results on the success of this product to adequetly print white decals. it was however good at printing a white undercoat for the color decals. The biggest problem there was the registration between the white pass and the color pass. some got around this by printing the white on one sheet then printing the color on another sheet and decaling the model twice. (white is needed under the color to make it work on darker models.
This is one area that the Alps printers really shine. In addition to the ability to print white they also can do what is refered to as overlay printing. The printer, after printing the white layer, can draw the sheet back into the printer to print the color layer in perfect registration over the white.
According to the Highball Graphics website a year or so ago, the company (I believe it was Kodak) that made the ink for their printer ceased production of this product line and about the same time ALPS printer inks also ceased production. Highball had pruchased an expensive printer when ALPS stopped making printers. Loss of these inks put a number of smaller decal manufacturers and those who made their own home decals in a real bind. Highball is getting many of their decals printed by a 3rd party printer, and will have to fully convert when they finaly run out of ink for their in-house printer.