Decal status update?

[GreatMoose]

So I know there's been talk of somebody taking up the mantel of custom decal wizard, but haven't heard anything new in a while. Any news on the front?

[Wicked Ace]

Inquiring minds want to know.

[winterdyne]

I was thinking about it a while back, but it was a no-go. Simply couldn't get enough cash together to buy the kit (from www.atttranfser.com). Somewhere there's a poll that I used to gauge interest just from this site, and while it wouldn't cover the outlay, it was still fairly significant. Devin had also agreed to allow the use of his sheet designs, so for the macross stuff it could have been ready to go fairly quickly.

[Valkyrie addict]

what exactly is needed for doing this??

all I know is that you need the decal sheets and a special kind of old printer..

[winterdyne]

The primary requirement is the ability to print in white. Up till fairly recently this was only provided by ALPS / OKI sublimation printers, but now there are laser printers that can deposit an opaque white toner (link in previous post). This requires TWO printers. One for the colour dyes, and one for the white (as the colour may stick to the rollers and contaminate a white finish). Printing is therefore a two stage process (on clear waterslide decal film) - first the white layer is printed then that is run through the colour printer. Not sure how accurate the alignment is, but the sample prints I got looked ok.

The downside is that laser printers can't do the metallic colours (silver, gold) that the ALPS ribbon printers used to, so they're not so useful for the railway modellers that use those colours.