anyone got a source? i'm looking to repaint a c5 diecast, and was wondering about the emblems/decals? any suggestions???

 

Hi Joe C -

I just purchased the Testors custom decal kit at Wal Mart for $7.00.

I have not yet printed any decals, but the gist is you use their special decal paperin your inkjet printer to print the decals - then use the included spray "fix" and let it dry.

Then you use it just like any film-type slide-off decal.

I am making a customized model of my wifes 99 coupe, and I bought the kit so that I can make decals of her real-flame fuel-rail covers for the model.

I have not used it yet, so I don't know the quality etc of the decals.

Just some FYI.....

best regards -

mqqn

 

I'd be interested in how this system works out, too.
I've been eyeing that decal kit for some time, but it would be nice to know how it works before I purchase it.

GT

 

Hi GT -

I'll let you know - I will be messing with it over the next week or so -

best regards -

mqqn

 

let us know

 

The only problem is, that this decal kit cannot reproduce white (inkjet uses primary colors+black on a white paper background). The decals will look great on the sheet, but once you take them off the white background, you're screwed. Been there, done that!

You'll need to buy white sheet decals and trim carefully if you need an underlayment of white (e.g. to reproduce the crossed flags emblem in silver [light gray] or the white checkers on the C5 emblem).

-CKB

 

Hey guys, There is a cheaper way to go if you are planning on doing a lot of custom decals. Go to www.decalpaper.com, you can get (10) 8.5" x 11" sheets for $8.00 plus shipping. They have both clear and white paper for ink jet printers. Once the decal image is printed on the paper, seal it with Krylon Crystal Clear Acrylic spray. This can be purchased at Wal-mart, Lowes, HD, etc. Bub is right, you can print any color but White. If you print any color other than Black on the clear paper, it requires a White background to make the colors show correctly when applied. Dark backgrounds don't support the colors well on the clear paper. I created all of the graphics on the model in the pics on my computer at home and printed them on the clear paper since the base color of the car was White. They turned out really well. If you trim close to the edges of the graphic and clear coat the whole modle when your are done, they look as if they were printed or painted on the car.

Jon

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Hi Folks -

I did print both sheets of decals and try them out.

I found just what IWAVE2 and bub reported.

I wanted to put a decal of our flamed fuel rail covers on a model.

I printed them on white background paper first, and then found I had to trim them up too much to make them fit.

Then I printed them again, this time on the clear sheet. When I attempted to apply the decals, I noticed that the decal is not opaque and the dark background of the models black FRC's blunted all of the decals detail.

I removed the decal and painted the FRC bright silver metallic. Then I applied another flamed FRC over the silver. This worked well and the FRC's even look a little metallic.

The hardest thing was making the decals thge correct scale size. I used JASC PaintShop Pro and sized the decals in converted scale inches, but this did not work when they printed for some reason.

I just put several different sizes of the decal patterns that I wanted to print on the 8.5 x 5.5 inch decal sheets. Then, after printing, I could cut out the one that was closest to scale.

In all , this kind of custom decals work great - I know Micro-scale sells sheet if you wanted to buy like IWAVE2 does.

Our local Hobby store sells the sheets from testors.

I am going to keep experimenting with them and my imaging to get better photorealistic decals.

I'll post pictures when I do work that is worth posting....still not happy with the results but I think it just takes some patience and experimentation.

best regards -

mqqn

 

Hi IWAVE2 -

Nice BG Dare car!

Good idea buying the sheets in bulk!

best regards -

mqqn

 

Hey mqqn,

Thanks for the compliment on the BG Police Vette. I have loved that car since the day I saw it and had to build a model of it for my collection.

You said you had trouble sizing the decals for printing. After creating the artwork for a decal, try saving it to a WORD file. You then can shrink or enlarge the image to what ever size you want using the scale on the screen before you print it. This is what I do and it works great.

Be sure and post pics of your model when you get it completed. Good luck.