The Marmo Method Modelbuilding Guide #4: How To Make Your Own Decals

By Richard Marmo

The fourth Marmo Method Modelbuilding Guide answers the question asked by a wide range of creative people...from modelbuilders to crafters of all types. Namely, how to make your own decals. Decal paper, in both clear and white, are now available that are designed to work with inkjet printers...and some with laser printers. Today, you can make your own decals, once you know how to do it. Manufacturers try to help you...even to the point of embedding video clips in their websites...by providing some level of instructions as far as printing the images are concerned. What they don’t tell you is how to create the image in the first place, a fact that is the genesis for this ebook.

This Guide includes discussions on equipment and software as well as techniques dealing with resizing, restoration of damaged areas and more. Several brands of paper are dealt with, along with the necessary fixatives needed to waterproof your decals.

An essential Guide for serious modelbuilders. Diecast collectors will be able to create needed decals to restore or convert those expensive diecast models as well. Then there are model railroaders, a wide range of crafters and on and on. Virtually anyone who has a need for custom markings in decal form will find this Guide of valuable to them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rincom Productions
• Release date: Mar 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311561022

Richard Marmo

The author is a freelance writer and professional modelbuilder. He has also spent decades researching his family's genealogy. He has written three print books, several hundred articles and created several CD-ROM photo galleries. Along the way, he has produced well over 1,000 models for clients ranging from Aerospace companies to private collectors. A self-described aircraft/science fiction nut...ahem, enthusiast...he will and has built just about anything you care to name, depending on his client's requirements.A native Southerner who was born in Tennessee, he has spent most of his life in Texas (He got there as soon as he could.). He lives in Fort Worth with his wife, Nelda, his dog, Magnum, and more model kits than he'll ever be able to build in this life.

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The Marmo Method Modelbuilding Guide #4

How To Make Your Own Decals

by Richard Marmo

Copyright 2014 Richard Marmo

Smashwords Edition, Version 1.0

All photos by the author unless otherwise credited.

Smashwords Edition license statement.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table Of Contents

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1: Equipment

Chapter 2: Decal Paper

Chapter 3: Fixatives

Chapter 4: Capturing The Image

Chapter 5: Restoring Old Decals

Chapter 6: What About The Missing White?

Chapter 7: Resizing

Chapter 8: Creating A New Image

Chapter 9: Printing The Decal

Chapter 10: Sealing The Decal

Chapter 11: Applying The Decal

Chapter 12: Alternate Techniques

Chapter 13: Links

Epilogue

About The Author

Prologue

Go to virtually any forum on the internet and you will find questions from modelers wanting to know how to make their own decals. Or how to salvage old or damaged kit decals. The offered solutions have been imaginative and creative, with some being more practical than others. With the advent of quality decal paper that actually work with inkjet and laser printers, it’s now reached the point that decal paper manufacturers are creating videos to embed on their sites that purport to tell you how to make decals using their paper. Frequently, the video starts with a voiceover that says after printing your decal and proceeds to tell you how to apply it. The problem here is that they don’t tell you how to create the image in the first place, never mind the many other variables involved. There’s a huge difference between creating the image, producing the finished decal and then applying it on a candle, Ju-87 Stuka or an Israeli armored vehicle.

Introduction

We modelers are never satisfied. No matter what the manufacturers produce, we’re always asking them to give us more. More detail, recessed panel lines, full cockpit interiors and on and on. That, of course, gave rise to a vibrant aftermarket industry offering a staggering variety of resin castings, photoetch detail sets…some so microscopic in size that you need an eight power Optivisor to even see them. But no matter what detail you add to a model or how perfect the finish, without the proper markings all you’ve done is simply build another model. That fact resulted in another member of the aftermarket. Decals.

Despite being inundated with literally thousands of decal sheets over the decades, making it impossible to buy one of every new release, the inevitable problem arose. Time after time, a particular marking that you had to have was nowhere to be seen. Either the sheet that had that marking was no longer made, the manufacturer had gone belly up, the marking had never been produced in the first place or the marking was available in the wrong scale.

Over the years, all types of creative approaches were tried in order to make your own decals. These attempts ranged all the way from hand painting the needed marking…if you were a good enough artist with a steady hand…to applying dry transfer letters to clear decal paper to hand cut stencils, etc.

One method made use of copy machines...or tried to. After creating the desired markings on a sheet of typing paper, that paper and a sheet or three of decal paper were taken to a local copy shop.

When the sheet of decal paper was fed into the copier, its path took it through and around a rotating drum that was fairly warm. If everything went right, you took the printed sheet home, sprayed it with clear lacquer, let it dry and you had your decals. If it didn’t, the paper would weld itself to the drum, while the shop owner worried about how much the copy tech was gonna charge to repair the damage and the modeler stood around trying to look innocent!

However, technology marches on. Today archival inks for inkjets are fairly common and inkjet printable decal paper…in both clear and white…now allows for printing markings with predictable results. Photo programs make it easy to create the needed markings and then resize them to the required dimensions. As a result, you’d think that it’d be a snap to produce custom decals and you’d be wrong. The simple fact is that we are the problem…the human factor. No one person approaches custom decals the same way as the next person. Then there’s the variation in experience, the software you’re using, the choice of paper…not all decal paper is the same or works the same…and so on.

No matter how much technology has improved, making your own decals is still more of an art than it is a science. That statement alone has been the genesis for this ebook. Will it tell you everything you need to know about making your own decals? Not a chance, because we’re all learning and improving every day. Materials are also changing every day, some vanishing and others being ‘improved’. But it will show you how to create and produce unique, quality decals that aren’t available anywhere