Help Making Decals

How do I get decals that are for my own railraod rather than a commercial railroad? In other words, how do I letter and number my own railroad without trying to cut and paste a bunch of decals? Is there a way to make my own?

Jim Sherwin

A few options:

1. Check out Rail Graphics. They make custom decals for model railroaders, but you probably wont like the prices.
http://www.railgraphicsdecals.com/

2. Buy your own blank decal paper, and print decals using a black and white laser printer. You can create the designs in Photoshop or Illustrator (dont use PAINTBRUSH or WORD). That's how we do it on the R&IT. As long as you are applying black letters over a light background, you're all set.

3. Hire someone to do it for you- deisgn and print them for you (possibly using an inkjet). You need a printer that can print high-resolution, or the decals will not look crisp.

That's it in a nutshell.

-otto-

I only need the railroad company initials and locomotive number under the cab; I do not need anything on either the long hood or the short hood of the locomotives. However, I need decals for 50 locomotives! The lettering can either be yellow or white, and the locomotives will be black. I have an inkjet printer.

So, my question is, can I make them myself and print them off on my inkjet printer? I think I could get all the lettering and numbers on two sheets, so I am disqualified from railgraphicsdecals!

As I understand it, if you need white lettering, the only printer that will do this is an ALPS printer, which is no longer made. An ordinary inkjet printer will only do black. An ordinary color printer will do yellow, but it won't show up well against a dark background, so you'd need to double-decal.

I've done a fair amount of black lettering on my ordinary Brother HL-730. For instance, no commercial decal set for Santa Fe work equipment comes very close to the prototype -- both decals and commercial lettering on painted equipment have the reporting marks and number the same size, which isn't correct. You'd be surprised, in fact, how much prototype equipment has black lettering.

If all you need on your locos, though, is cab side numbers and initials, it shouldn't be that hard to use commercial alphabets.

I would look to Microscale and their line of "just numbers" and "just letters" sets. Sounds like your best bet.

http://www.microscale.com

-otto-

Microscale can also do custom runs, but their prices are a lot like RGD. You might also try Highball Graphics at http://www.mgdecals.com or Scale Rail Graphics (my recommendation, Bill's done excellent work for the Proto-Freelance SIG) at http://www.scalerailgraphics.com

One thing you might try, especially with some of the smaller decal companies, is making a single 8.5'x11" of lots and lots of your required initials and a massive "number scramble." It all depends on how many units you have to letter.

Mike L.
Federal Heights, CO

Checking the sites of the two companies above, it appears neither is offering custom decal service at the moment. One said that they were producing decals on an ALPS printer? I would much rather have the screen-printed products that Rail Graphics produces.

-otto-

Actuallly, for model railroad use, an ALPS printer may be a better solution. Very small lettering can't be reproduced well with a screen, or at least not the screen sizes used by Rail Graphics. RG apparently tells its customers to keep data lettering, etc., larger than prototype. You can see this on the otherwise very good Mosteller VGN ballast car decals.

Micro Scale advertises its stuff as screen printed, and there's better small lettering on their sets, though I'm not completely happy there, either.

I can only get black lettering on my printer, and apparently with no more ALPS being made, no other printer will do white. But I'm much happier with the small data lettering I can get for black lettering on my printer than what I see in screen made decals.

I've used ALPS made decals from Mike Rose and have no complaints. I don't see a difference in larger lettering, but I think the quality of smaller lettering is actually better.

FWIW, Kodak is making a proofer that uses ALPS technology, which would allow you to do white. (Highball is using these new printers) As I recall, ALPS technology also allows you to use metal foils, but that may not work on decals.

I second jwb's assertion, I and several others have had no issues with ALPS-printed decals. I believe the difference between ALPS and laserjet/inkjet decals is that the ALPS-style printers use dry inks and/or color sublimation, so they're not susceptible to water damage.

Mike L.

As I understand it, Kodak is offering a package of software and hardware which includes an ALPS-like printer. The down side is that it is a package and the price is $5K.

That is from some months ago, things may have changed, but I haven't heard that they have. There do appear to be some differences between what the ALPS and Kodak printers will do, but those differences get into subtlties of ALPS practice which I've never been into.

As to the way ALPS works, there are two distinct methods. The older, and the one used by decal makers, uses a plastic ribbon coated with a waxy vehicle which carries the pigment. The print head heats the ribbon, a little droplet of waxy "ink" is transferred to the paper, where it cools and hardens.

Dye sublimation is different. The dye is heated more strongly and actually turns to a vapor, which then condenses on the paper, hence the name "dye sublimation". (Sublimation is the name for a process in which a solid passes directly into a vapor with out a liquid phase in between.)

The temperature used in the sublimation process is higher than in the wax transfer, so high that some have reported melting the film on decal paper, producing an ungodly mess and a need for print head replacement. The old MD1000 ALPS would do the transfer process only. The MD5000 (I think) does dye sublimation only. In between are 2 or 3 models which can do either, or can do transfer with a dye sublimation kit available (if you can find one these days).

One thing I've heard about ALPS is that the ribbon gets consumed, whether you use it or not. That is, if you set out to print a 1/2 x 1/2 inch whatever in the upper left corner of a sheet, the printer will feed the whole 8 1/2 x 11 sheet just as if it were printing, and run ribbon through the cartridge just as if it were printing. Rewinding is apparently not an option.

All told, I think I'm glad I didn't buy an ALPS when I could, the attractions of making my own decals notwithstanding. I find offers to sell me an ALPS highly resistable. That's not to say they are junk, or worthless, or anything like that. Several people use them and swear by them. I believe based on what I've read that there is more learning curve than I care to undertake. There's also the matter of what do you do if it breaks (and it seems it will break, quite likely in transit from Joe Seller to your house).

Bob Netzlof

One issue is that model paint schemes these days are so much better researched and executed that there's much less need for decals. So far, while I've thought about doing special decals to do my undecorated Spectrum 0-6-0T in an industrial road name, the urge hasn't been great enough to overcome what Bob mentions above. The ability to do black decals on nearly any printer siphons away additional creative urges. I've done my own ATSF work equipment set that's much better than any commercial set (but don't want the hassle of trying to sell it). I will probably do a D&RGW work equipment set as well (but also don't want the hassle of trying to sell it).

Back to the original question, how to solve it with an inkjet printer.
A suggestion:
Paint a light colored "number panel" on the cab side.
From your word processing program, pick one of the shapes they offer, such as a rectangle with the sculpted corners. (Think L&N before any mergers.) Print it out on heavy stock and then carefully cut out that shape. You now have a mask for airbrushing that shape on the cab side. or a stencil for tracing on a strip of masking tape and then carefully cutting and removing the shape.

Print out the initials and "number string" in a dark color on clear background decal paper.
You're choosing the numbers, so make it real easy for yourself. Let the printout decal dry for a day, then seal it. I have had the best results from airbrushing on Testor gloss coat. You can also use a spray can of any clear gloss, but don't get too close and do several light coats.

BillD

I was browsing some of the messages here and came across this one about decals and Alps printers.

I have been an owner of an Alps printer ( actually 3 of them) for several years now. I use these to print decals for HO scale and do custom work for several people. If you need something printed I can give you a quote once I see the artwork that you need done. I would like to clear up some misconceptions about the printers. Yes they are capable of printing white and they are basicaly the only affordable printer that can do so. As far as being waterproof, yes they are but, they are not as scratch resistant as say a screen printed decal such as Microscale. With these decals a clear coat is needed to protect the decal once it is applied. The printers work similar to a dot matrix printer, that is they have a head that when it passes over the paper small pins press down on the ribbon and heat the wax/resin coating and transfer it to the paper. They are capable of 600 dpi resolution which works very well for decals. The ribons are rewindable and do not wast a whole page worth of ink just to print a small section. However, and this is where the confusion on this may have come from, if there are two images on the same line, the ribbon does get wasted during the move over the paper between the two images. This is one of the reasons I try to make sure all of the artwork on my decals is as tight as possible.
The hardest part to making decals is the artwork. Raster images generally do not make good decals as the ability to scale an image up or down and still retain good resolution is difficult. Most decal makers who print with Alps machines us what is refered to as Vector based artwork. This type of art can be scaled up or down with out losing any resolution. Adoby Illustrator or Corel Draw are two popular programs for this. If you have any other questions please feel free to ask me.

I am not one to do the "PROMOTIONAL" thing, but here is who I use.

Gary at GMC Rail, he has been doing my decals for more then a couple years now, his prices are great too. Once you get the artwork or whatever setup, then its there for reprints at a minimal cost.

http://www.kcnet.com/~gmcrail/GMCRail1.html


and this is what my decals currently look like
http://www.trainweb.org/cior/engines/ciorsd35.html