Hey guys, I have a one-of-a-kind decal sheet (designed for IPMS nationals Atlanta, F-105G and C-130 Georgia ANG) I was able to get my hands on and I’m wondering how to make a copy of the sheet and use the copies instead of the original. I have an F-105G and am planning on purchasing a 1/48 C-130 and building them as GANG birds. Is that possible? I’m thinking just going to Kinko’s or somewhere and using decal sheet paper. I just want to keep the originals in the plastic and NOT use them, unless I have no other alternative. Will that work?
Let me start by saying you need to watch out for Copyright infringements. Many commerical copy centers will not allow you to make copies of copyrighted material.
From my perspective, I’ve made copies of decal sheets using my home computer and decal paper designed to work on inkjet printers with a lot of success. The real challegne largely depends on a couple of factors, if the decals need white and if they have any metallic colors on them. If they have either you may have some challenges to consider. If the decals have neither of them you can literally copy them. Just make sure to clear coat the decals before using them and trim the decals as tight the the image or numbers as possible to reduce the amount of film on the decal.
If they have white you may have to paint that on the model or consider using a white sheet instead of clear. Then you really have to trim each decal right up to the edge though… Another option would be to acquire an Alps printer, this will allow you to print white as well as metallic colors.
Good Luck!
I BELIEVE there’s another Monogram F-105 kit with the same decals though, so that may resolve the issue for the 105. I found a decent ALPS thermal printer on E-bay for around 30 bucks, would that do the trick?
The ALPS printer you will want is the “Micro-Dry” series. I have the MD-1300. there is also the MD-5000. Getting a good decal is not as simple as scanning your original and hitting print, though. The printer is a CMYK, so it will have cyan, magenta yellow and black cartridges installed, and it makes colors by “dithering” dots of these colors. You can see the dots in the final image if you look closely, the images are also translucent. The thing does have a white cartridge, so I usually print a solid white underlay, then try to make solid passes of the available inks to get close to the color I need.
To get this to happen, say to a decal sheet I want to re-produce, I have to scan the original, then use that as a background layer in a drawing program, then re-draw the images in layers over that. The images are solid black when they are drawn, so that the printer will lay down a solid layer of color. Take something simple like a hinomaru, you draw a circle the size of the final image, then a smaller circle inside that for the red part, and fill them both with solid black. You print the big circle with a pass or two of white, then kill the large circle. The small circle gets printed with one pass of yellow, then up to 4 passes of magenta to achieve the red you need.
It has real difficulty with grays, fleshtones and the like, but will print metallic gold and silver as well as the white. Once you learn to dnace with it, it is a great tool, although cartridges are becoming scarce.
One thing to also be aware of, is the backing paper of the original decals. If it is that blueish green, you will have to edit it in a program like PS to change it to white. Orit will print all of the blue backing as a decal. I’ve had this happen.
I recently needed some decals to complete a decal sheet that was lacking. I went to my town’s local printer shop and had them done there on a Laser Jet printer, they came out wonderful and it only cost me $2.00 bucks to have it done. I would recommend taking the sheet to a local mom and pop shop and have an extra few sheets copied and printed there.
Also from my understanding if you are reproducing the sheet for your own personal use and not planning to sell them, I dont think that violates copywrite laws but I could be mistaken.