Originally Posted by
brdavis
Hello,
I need some help with some home-printed decals I'm trying to do.
I'm using Testors white decal paper and an inkjet printer. I'm using white because the decals themselves have white areas in them. I printed the decals and let them dry for a couple of days, then sprayed a few coats of Pledge/Future floor polish and let that dry for a couple of days. I have a good coat of Pledge/Future on the model to apply the decal to. When applying the decals, it took a very long time for the backing to soften up enough to remove the decal. I set the decal in the water so that only the backing is touching the water and not the printed side. I've usually read to let the decal sit in water for 15 seconds or so, but after sitting for over 60 seconds, these gave no signs of coming off of the paper backing. I ended up using a hobby knife to separate the two, which worked okay. In positioning the decal on the model, the color right at the edges of the decal bled out and I was left with the white paper showing through at the edges. After the decal dried I applied Micro-sol / Micro-set, which completely ruined the decal, ink running everywhere. I scraped it all off and now I am back to square one.
I suspect I need to use a different sealer on the decals rather than Pledge/Future, but at this point I'm wondering if even that will prevent bleeding at the edges of the decals? Should I cut of the decals and then spray the sealer? I also wonder if I should be using clear paper so I can leave a border around the edge of the decal, but then how to you handle the areas that should be white? Do I paint the white on the model in the appropriate areas and then apply the decals printed on clear decal paper over it? Do I need to paint the white areas regardless of which decal paper I use so they will actually remain white?
Do I spend some more money on another coating or do I cut my losses in the DIY arena and just pony up for some professionally done decals? (I wanted to print my own because all decals I would like can't be found from a single source, shipping is in some cases twice the cost of the decals, and some of the decals available I don't quite like the look of).
I know the decals from Reviresco, Dom's, or 144 Direct have great reviews, but it seems like some of you have also had success doing your own.
Any advice is appreciated, thanks for reading.
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