The Little World

Get more home-made every day.

We are in the midst of a drought of decal paper in Perth. It may have escaped the attention of the major news channels, but I assure you the effects are being felt in the model airplane world. Particularly in my own little one, as I have discovered the joys of printing my own insigniae and markings on the inkjet printer. I hoarded my last sheet of Testors 5.5 inch by 8.5 inch paper but finally had to print on it – leaving me gasping for the next project.

There is paper available from the eastern states, I am told. On-line orders, etc. You start at $ 35 a packet and go up from there. I have a philosophy that suggests going down rather than up and I am never happier than when the price goes down to stuff I already possess.

A google search of decal paper turns up much the same old information and how-to videos from the US. Can they really be so stupid as to require a 20 minute instruction tutorial on how to soak a decal? I fear I am missing something here, but I’m not going to watch another YouTube in an effort to find it.

Instead, a Wiki article showed the cross-section of a typical decal and gave the composition of the layers. After the porous paper, the secret ingredient seems to be a dextrose layer – I am guessing thinned corn syrup. It’s the thing that dissolves in water and then acts as a thin glue on the model surface. Then a layer of either white or clear acrylic varnish, the ink from the printer, and a final sealing coat of clear varnish.

I’ve got plenty of good porous Japanese printing paper, white and clear varnish and the printer is ready. I’ll pick up a small tin of Karo or similar from the grocery store and start experimenting. One thing I can already confirm from previous prints is that Epson K9 ink makes a good decal, but you must use the Photo Black rather than the Matte Black if you wish to avoid cracking and marking in the black portions of the design.