Custom Aircraft Markings Query

Cobra · June 18, 2009, 12:15:27 AM

Hey Guys, Just wondering if it's a Good Idea to Make,Order,or Create Custom Aircraft Markings. I'm thinking of Doing an 'Ace Combat' style Markings scheme for some of my Models and I'm Not sure which is a Better idea. a Little Help,Please?

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Jeffry Fontaine · June 18, 2009, 12:29:54 AM

Have you considered printing out your own decals? Several companies produce blank decal sheets that are compatible with most printers. Testor's offered a DIY decal making program at one time that provided a CD and blank decal paper.

jorel62 · June 18, 2009, 02:30:39 AM

I have the Testors program. It's not bad, pretty easy to use. Their decal paper is pretty thick. Just couldn't get the hang of sealing the decal sheet before using them.

Jeffry Fontaine · June 18, 2009, 02:48:54 AM

Quote from: jorel62 on June 18, 2009, 02:30:39 AMI have the Testors program. It's not bad, pretty easy to use. Their decal paper is pretty thick. Just couldn't get the hang of sealing the decal sheet before using them.

I thought you were supposed to use a clear spray finish on the decals after printing to fix them in place?

Mossie · June 18, 2009, 03:17:01 AM

I've found you need to do both. The ink can bleed slightly when you dip them in water if you only coat the top. I just use a thin single coat of Klear/Future before & after, works fine & doesn't increase the thickness of the decals noticeably. Colour Laserjets are the way to go (I use the works printer), inkjets can run badly, although I haven't tried coating the decals, might work.

One down side to printing your own decals is you can't print white. Most printers are designed for white paper so don't bother with white ink & just leave the area blank. If you need white, you need to paint it onto the surface of the model first & you need to be quite precise. You could print onto white decal sheet (never tried it) I suppose, but you'd need to trim the decal very close.

PR19_Kit · June 19, 2009, 01:54:53 AM

I've done quite a bit of 'home printing' with an inkjet printer lately, and I use the paper from the 'Crafty Computer Paper' company.

http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk/ProductDetail.asp?ProductID=158&CatID=15

They make clear and white paper and supply a spray-on varnish to coat the decals after printing, which needs 3 coats at 30 min intervals. I've yet to have any issues with ink bleeding, but that's maybe an issue of printer and ink manufacture. In my case I have an H-P Officejet something-or-other and use their (expensive....) ink for the job.

The white background printing is a pain though. Even if you print the decal with a narrow outline outside any white areas you still need the skill of a surgeon to cut either just inside the outline or just outside as required. I scrapped out one recent job just because I couldn't cut accurately enough and destroyed the decal.

One thing that I spend a lot of time doing is scaling the artwork to the print size, lots of time with a calculator and printing paper preliminary sheets seems to be required each time, but if it was easy there'd be no challenge I suppose.

NARSES2 · June 19, 2009, 04:07:33 AM

On the little I've done I use paper I got from Little Cars in the UK and both the white and clear sheets are fine. I have noticed that as Kit suggests the quality of ink does matter and only use genuine Epsom inks for this type of work.

So far I've only printed the free downloads from Model Airplane International so not had scaling problems

http://www.modelairplaneinternational.com/

PR19_Kit · June 19, 2009, 05:09:54 AM

I'm an idiot.......

I forgot to mention how I'd got round the scaling issue, and Chris' post reminded me.

I use PaintShoPro for the graphics work ('cos it's simple and the early versions are free.....) and I drew up a test page with a scale across the top and down one side, then saved that to a full A4 sheet. Then I printed umpteen sheets of it, changing the 'Page Setup' offsets and scales until I got a sheet with the correct scales printed out. I measured the number of pixels from one scale point to the next and made a note of the conversion factor on the sheet itself, and then blanked out the scales on the .bmp file and saved that as a master sheet. The conversion was 7.85 pixels = 1 mm and I've worked with that ever since.

Now I transfer my artwork onto the master sheet after working out it's correct length on the model, and convertin that to the number of pixels it needs to be on the decal sheet, move the various bits around until they take up the least space and print it.

Curently I'm managing to get about 90% of the stuff right first time time. Don't ask about the rest please.......