Hey guys,
I could use some advice, or maybe confirm I am out of luck here. I made some decals with inkjet decal paper, using gold colored letters which I thought would look good on locomotive tenders. But, the inkjet ink appears to be very transparent. When I applied the decal it just disappeared against the black paint on the tender. At the right lighting angle you could see the letters, and when I removed the decal and put it back on the backing paper the lettering showed up fine - so the ink didn’t wash away.
I used the recommended printer settings - best quality and photo paper - which I think gives the heaviest ink coverage.
Anyone have any success with inkjet decals over black or other dark paint?
George V.
Did you try letting the decal dry? Often times they’re darker wet than they are dry, and they might show up better then.
Hmmm… didn’t think of that. I figured I better get it off the tender before it really set up and stuck into the paint. I’ll try on a scrap piece of something that is black. Thanks for the tip.
George V.
I remember someone saying they had to paint a yellow base under their yellow home made decals to get it to show up. I’m assuming your using clear decal paper?
Depending on how straight your paper tracks through your printer, you might be able to print over it a second time to get a thicker layer of ink.(just an idea??)
Unfortunately, inkjet printers expect you to print on white paper, so all the colors are designed so that they will show up well on white.
When I print decals, I make allowances for this. Most of my decals are advertisements “painted” on buildings, so I simply paint a white rectangle (assuming a rectangular decal) and then put the decal on top of that. This works out pretty well. But, it’s not going to help in your situation.
Doing a decal to go over black is probably going to be almost impossible. What you might try is painting the surface white, and also surrounding the decal image with black so that you’ll get the effect you want. This isn’t going to be as good as a “true gold” decal done professionally, but with some touch-up paint and weathering, you should be able to come up with a presentable model.
What you are experiencing is why comercialy printed decals are not done with inkjet printers. The only way you can put an inkjet printed decal over dark paint is to put a white undercoat under the printed color. Inkjet ink need the white paper it is usually printed on to have the color show up correctly.
Dan Pikulski
www.DansResinCasting.com
Try using white decal paper. Make the background color of the decal the same as the surface it will be applied to.
[Jeff - ya beat me to it! [:P]]
I learned a few years ago, when I started doing my own decals, that inkjet ink has NOT practical for making light decals on a dark background - major dissappointment.
However, I did devise a workaround, using white-background decal film [instead of ‘clear’]. It requires a graphical editing tool that allows you to choose from 16.8 million RGB color combinations - and lots of patience.
What I do is print little 1-inch squares of the dark background color on a sheet of white decal paper, with each of the Red/Green/Blue values (3 numbers between 0 and 255). It’s important to note these RGB values, because that’s what you will dial back into yuor graphical editor when you’ve found the shade that most closeley matches your train’s background color. Do the same with the color of your lettering, and you’ll be ready to print it. Cut the decal out as close to the letters/numbers as you possibly can, then any background color mismatch will be harder to detect.
The one drawback of this approach is that the white, yellow or whatever bright color you use for the lettering will look somewhat subdued (dull) compared to a Microscale decal or factory-stenciled.
The road number on the cab in this photo of #2206 was done using this technique.
Very nice. You did a great job of background color-matching.
If you have a scanner on your computer, you might try scanning the locomotive to get a color match that you can use to fill in the white space around the logo. Or, use a digital camera and photograph it, and then import the color that way.
I tried letting the decal dry as was suggested and the ink did not show any better. I also discovered another downside - the inkjet decal paper is quite thick and shows as a raised area compared to commercial decals.
I am thinking that using white paper and matching the background color, as suggested by Jeffrey and Ken, would still show that problem. On Ken’s model it looks great - but on a smaller surface you can match the size of the decal to the size of the area - such as the area under the cab window. A long name on a steam tender wouldn’t look too good.
Time to consider alternatives, I guess…
George V.
