The Little World

Well, that can’t be very much, can it? Try making your own and see…

The idea of using the inkjet printer I already own to make custom decals was very attractive. I’m a dab hand with Photoshop Elements and as long as a design is reasonably simple, I can duplicate it. Even if it is not a precise copy, it can be quite near enough for a 1:72 scale model.

And there is always the scanner and the internet. I don’t suppose the US Air Force would sue me if I copied a roundel from Wikipedia – though I am not so sure about the Union Pacific Railroad. I seem to recall they sooled the lawyers onto toy train makers a few years back in an effort to get paid for the HO version of their livery. I am not afraid of the US Air Force dropping GP 38’s on my house but I don’t want them dropping lawyers.

Any rate, once I get a design for whatever I have thought up, I transfer it to a document that is sized according to the sheet of decal paper. These sheets are more expensive than plutonium. And they only come in 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch in the local hobby shop. Testors, I believe and the odd size is a US Half Letter. They probably keep it to that dimension because anything bigger would be too expensive for the average modeller to afford…

You have to be careful with these sheets – keep them in dry and cool conditions or they go off and spoil any printing that you try to do. Even as they are, it is a marginal thing to get all the designs out evenly on one page. I lay out twice the number of designs I need with the calculation that there will be 15% spoilage.

Once the things have run through the printer you have to give the sheet adequate drying time before you coat it – otherwise you risk smears. Once the decal film has dried, you are ready to go. Trim the design to the margin and treat it like any other decal – water, setter, and solvent.

The real cost is the printer ink and that paper. They make it actually economical to buy aftermarket decals from the firms that make them if the designs you need are at all common. I will be haunting the decal stands at the WASMEX show this year and also the show in Melbourne and any initial resistance that I might have had to paying aftermarket prices will be gone – I have seen what happens here at the Little Workshop.