I have had the Testors decal kit for over a year now and finally decided to try some. I was very impressed with the quality of the printed images but when I sprayed the clear topcoat some of the ink bled or separated a little (this can be seen on the top line). I don’t know if I should have waited longer before the clear (I waited overnight). Also, I put some Walthers Decal Solvaset on the first one and it wrinkled the decal so bad I had to remove it. I have applied about 5-6 of the decals so far and they all look very good without the Solvaset. I will wait 24 hours and spray them with Dul-Coat and hopefully they won’t react.
Has anyone had these problems with homemade decals?
I had the same problem when I used my old HP 731 inkjet printer. The ink for that printer got hard to find, so I bought a Canon Pixma to replace it. The decals I print now don’t bleed.
But, I also switched from paint-on Liquid Decal Film to clear Krylon spray, and lately I’ve been using a different paper (from www.decalpaper.com) so it’s hard to get a direct comparison.
One thing that did help with my previous decals was to make sure the paper was absolutely flat when I coated it. If the paper was curling a bit or not set on a level surface, gravity seemed to make the running problem worse.
I really like the model, by the way. It’s very nicely done.
Looks darn good. I can’t see any trouble with the top line. I’m thinking that the clear coating, what ever it may be, has a thinner active enough to soften/dissolve the inkjet inks. All I can think of it to make your first coating very very thin, let it dry, and if necessary give it another coat.
Solvaset softens the decal film to let it snuggle down over joints, rivets, plank seams and the like. If you are decaling onto something smooth, like your box truck sides, you don’t really need it. Dullcote is really good about NOT crinkling decals, much better than other clean matte sprays.
Do the Testor’s instructions say anything about Dullcote, or Solvaset?
Not a bad result for the first time but yes, I can see a little red bleeding away from the lettering. Although as the others have said, its difficult to see in the pictures. I don’t have any experience with the Testors decal paper but I have made dozens of custom decals using Evan Designs decal paper. I like this decal paper as it has a special coating that absorbs the inkjet ink and locks it in place without the need for a sealer coat. In fact, the special coating locks in the ink so well that I have only managed to smear a single decal but only after several coats of Solvaset were applied and the decal repeatedly realigned (it was a round Southern Pacific decal that I just couldn’t get straight). The other cool thing about this decal paper is that you can make both white and clear background decals from a single sheet of decal paper. The paper comes with an opaque white background. This background will dry white if only acrylic based clearcoats are applied to the model after decal application. However, use of a solvent based clear over the decal will permanently turn the white background clear. On a pair of HO scale EMD F7 locos I painted in the SP Black Widow scheme, I made and applied round SP shield decals in color, white lettering on black background decals for the “Southern Pacific” road name, large side-of-loco numbers and “Radio Equipped” lettering, plus black lettering on clear background decals for the nose numbers. Even the tiny “Radio Equipped” decals are legible.
Hornblower; thanks for the info on Evans Designs decal paper; I will definately try it. I did some other decals on the same sheet that needed white in them but I applied them to a brick building with white mortar and they look OK, but I was going to paint some white patches where the decal would go (That would have looked better but I just got lazy or anxious?). I am definately excited about making my own decals now.
