Making Decals and needing a new printer

[Doc Pye]

Hi all,

Well I have put it off long enough but my trusty Lexmark X9575 is clearly dying, as the driver is having problems and the ink cartridges just tend to dry up (as well as being expensive!).

So having resurrected my search for the 'perfect printer', I am still torn by the choice of either a color laser or color inkjet. Each obviously has their own pros and cons but the real question is what is really good out there for doing decals?

I want a versatile printer that can make good decals - great resolution down to fine graphics for 1:148 but mostly doing 1:72-1:56 scales.

So please do share your own personal experiences, as well as any printer recommendations (as well as ones to avoid). 

Thanks in advance.

[ntpntpntp]

Well this won't help but personally I still maintain an ancient Citizen Printiva printer which uses the Alps Microdry technology (dry ribbon inks). In the 90s and 00s Microdry was considered the best "home user" method to produce decals, with the  ability to print in metallic colours and in white (the latter is a must in my opinion), and able to print on thin waterslide decal film. The results can be pretty good, though some colour shades are a bit dithered and people used to come up with recipies comprising layers of solid colours and white.  Here's an example of white decals I produced back in 2004 for an N scale multiple unit, even the wording in the windows is legible at around 0.5mm height.




Sadly the Alps printers are long out of production and supplies of the inks are dwindling.


Given the options available now, I'd go for laserjet rather than inkjet as in my experience inkjet decal production kits tend to need thicker film and sealing coats etc. Laser toner doesn't dry out like some inkjet cartridges can when not used for a while. I got rid of our home inkjet printers years ago and stick to networked laser printers now, ideal for everyone in the family. We currently have a Samsung multifunction mono laser for general use and churning out photocopies, and an HP Laserjet Pro MFP M277DW colour laser which I think does pretty decent renditions of photos.

I'm aware of the laserjet "Ghost White" toner and printer bundles but they're not cheap!   I'm not convinced by the methods which print on white film and rely on a good match to the main background colour of the model to blend in the decal.

https://www.ghost-white-toner.com/

[chrism]

The problem with doing transfers on a home printer (definitely laser, not sure about inkjet) is that they don't have the colour depth of commercial transfers which are screen-printed using paint. Therefore some colour combinations of transfer and underlying paint just won't work.

Nick Evans, @njee20, has very kindly done me a couple of batches of white transfers using his Ghost White toner which serve my purpose very well on a lightish grey background, just looking like lettering that's faded a bit. They aren't so good on darker backgrounds, though.

The same applies to other colours - yellow over red or crimson lake is nigh-on invisible and pretty much the same over white, so what should be gold lettering on my Furness Railway coaches had to be done in red instead.

I was able to do the black lining on my recent Furness Railway locos, even over a fairly dark indian read they show up reasonably well. For the crests, however, I had to paint white dots of the right size and put the transfers over those to make them visible. Ditto the buffer beams which I painted white than applied the whole buffer beam graphic as a single transfer.

[njee20]

Yes as Chris said, I've got an HP M177FW with Ghost White toner. I think you need to approach things a bit differently with home made decals, but I find them really versatile. Use of white-backed decal paper is good when you want intensity, but is no good for intricate shapes, as you have to cut accurately. So no good for lettering etc. The white toner is pretty good, it definitely lacks the intensity, but is fine for my use.

All the decals below were printed by me. The Imerys JIA used the white toner, you can see the intensity is ok, but not stunning.

Decals by njee20, on Flickr

The Drax wagon uses white backed paper for the coloured 'swooshes', and clear for the logos, and the JLR container is printed on white backed.

I use Mr Decal Paper paper, which is pretty good. It responds well to Micro Sol/Set to reduce the carrier film, and isn't too thick.

I would get a laser all day long. Sealing the decals with an inkjet is a pain, and the blacks can bleed to purple a bit. Plus the printers are just so much less finicky. My laser just works every time (and it's an old one I bought second hand!), rather than dealing with blocked nozzles, dried cartridges etc.

[RBTKraisee]

Nick, have you ever tried printing a colour transfer on top of a white one?

Ross.

[njee20]

Not in one pass, no. Anecdotally everyone says the printers just aren't accurate enough to get both layers in the same place, so I'm not adequately bothered to try. Obviously you'd want millimetre perfection. ALPS type printers hold the paper in one place whilst doing multiple passes.

I do print white 'intensity patches' to go under colour decals, which works well. It's actually what Fox provide on some of theirs anyway to avoid decals looking washed out.

That's how the Freightliner logos are done here:

[chrism]

Not in one pass, no. Anecdotally everyone says the printers just aren't accurate enough to get both layers in the same place, so I'm not adequately bothered to try. Obviously you'd want millimetre perfection. ALPS type printers hold the paper in one place whilst doing multiple passes.

I'd be more concerned about the effect of feeding the fuser unit with a sheet of paper/transfer film with an already fused image on it.

[njee20]

Yeah not sure if that would cause problems. I'll try it sometime. Where it'd be great is data panels on a white backing, where actually being out very slightly wouldn't matter. I don't know if it would be out by a mm, or a few hundredths of one. One to play with in due course. For now I just do one decal with the white panels, and then one with the text over the top.

[Papyrus]

The problem with doing transfers on a home printer (definitely laser, not sure about inkjet) is that they don't have the colour depth of commercial transfers which are screen-printed using paint. Therefore some colour combinations of transfer and underlying paint just won't work.

Nick Evans, @njee20, has very kindly done me a couple of batches of white transfers using his Ghost White toner which serve my purpose very well on a lightish grey background, just looking like lettering that's faded a bit. They aren't so good on darker backgrounds, though.

The same applies to other colours - yellow over red or crimson lake is nigh-on invisible and pretty much the same over white, so what should be gold lettering on my Furness Railway coaches had to be done in red instead.

Very true. I tried printing some yellow decals to go on bauxite wagons and they were invisible. I got them done by precisionlabels.com in the end. I have a Brother laser printer (which my wife absolutely hates, but that is by-the-by...). I also tried to print some photos on it, but the resolution was nowhere near as good as my old inkjet. I have a few other decals I would like to try, but if they are not a success I will stick with precisionlabels.com for the small number I am likely to need.

Cheers,

Chris

[njee20]

That's interesting. I can't really tell the difference between those I printed on my old inkjet versus laser. I know people talk about dot dithering being an issue on laser prints, but I've not really had a problem. The gradients on things like those Drax wagons come out alright. I'll try and take a closeup. I forget the figure, but when I looked it seemed that most printers were the same resolution (1200 dpi?).

As an aside if anyone wants to print some decals on an inkjet printer I've got a few sheets of decal paper. Free to a good home.

[Doc Pye]

So are there any good printers out there?

My current searches have lead to these being possible contenders:

Canon PIXMA iX6850

Canon i-SENSYS LBP633Cdw

Lexmark C3326DW COLOR Laser

Any thoughts on the above, or other options, most welcomed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS I don't have experience with Canon printers but someone recently told me that they don't last long, as they have some sort of sponge device that soaks up the unused ink and once it is full, the printer is basically dead....

[ntpntpntp]

We had a Canon Pixma inkjet a few years ago.  It was ok and could create decent glossy photo prints.  It went with my son to uni and unfortunately failed, I think partly down to lack of regular use causing head blockage which I was unable to clean out when it came back home.

I've not tried a Canon laser printer. 

I trust Samsung lasers, having had a basic mono unit for many years until we upgraded to a multi-function with scanner/copier capabilities. 

As mentioned in a previous reply we also have an HP colour laser multi-function and that's been fine so far though doesn't get as much usage as the Samsung mono. It has WiFi connectivity whereas our Samsung laser is networked via our NAS storage server.

We had an A3 Brother inkjet for a while as we needed something for my son to print larger format schoolwork etc. The damn thing was always suffering paper jams and also ended up with ink blockages so I was rather put off that brand. 

Laser printers every time for me now, other than the very old Printiva but that's only for decals.

[Papyrus]

We had a Canon Pixma inkjet a few years ago.  It was ok and could create decent glossy photo prints.

Ditto. The big problem is the print heads getting clogged up with dry ink if you don't use them regularly. When everything was working, they were fine and produced nice prints but trying to keep them in that state drove me mad. I used to try to run a test page once a week but inevitably you forget. I'm not sure I would recommend a Canon inkjet, but I don't know whether there are any others which are better.

Cheers,

Chris

[Doc Pye]

Thanks all for sharing your insight, as that is what I am after.

As for Lexmark, well my only experience with them is the Inkjet X9575 I have, and it does do a good job. Yet, as everyone says, if you don't use it all the time you end up having to buy new cartridges just after a few prints.

As for HP, the old ones were great, and I still have a few B&W laser ones running for my work stuff. Yet, the HP inkjets are just crap...at least in my experience.

I have not looked at either Samsung or Brother, so I will see what is out there. Any specific recommendations?

All I really want is a printer that can print small details really well....not too much to ask, or is it???

[Yet_Another]

Samsung don't make printers any more. The business was taken over by HP some time ago.