Decal Making

on 2/22/2008 7:11 PM Wayne C. Morris said the following:

His exact words were: "The white is not just necessary for white areas of the graphic"

I want white letters, not a white background. I habve not heard good things about overprinting: I basically want clear film and white letters.

Rufus, Vedran, thanks. I will call ALPS Japan on Monday and enquire.

Very simply, I want to make some replacement decals for keys on my wife's laptop keyboard, where I had to get keys from another laptop and they have the wrong symbols/words on them. In Japan one cannot find such decals, and the ones I have found online cover the whole key, which is not something I want. Also, the style of the letters is not what I want.

Decals will wear off in a short time. I know that is how many keytops are labelled now (instead of two-shot moulding), nevertheless it might be a good idea to make several sets, particularly of the heavily used keys (etaoin shrdlu in descending order for English). The decals had worn off most of the keys on my old IBM T23 laptop in a couple of years, and that was being used with an external keyboard half the time.

I suspect the decals used by keyboard manufacturers are heavier-duty than modelling decals: don't know how well Alps decals will stand up. Obviously you will protect them with a varnish overcoat?

As an alternative, for your purposes, Letraset still do their dry transfer lettering in many fonts and colours, including white.

A more permanent option would be to use a transfer as a template to cut the letters from thin plastic sheet, which could then be stuck down to the keytop. I'm not sure I'd want to go that far, but it would be very hard-wearing.

Eaxactly. Did you have trouble understanding that sentence? It's a short way of saying "white is needed for white areas of the graphic, but that's not the only reason it's necessary."

You could make the decals more durable by printing them as a mirror image, applying a thin clear coat, and gluing them to the keys face-down. The decal film will be on top of the ink, so it'll act as a protective coating.

on 2/23/2008 4:02 PM Wayne C. Morris said the following:

We hadn't been talking about clear decal paper since Larry Farrell mentioned white decal paper. At no time during the thread from that point on, was clear decal paper mentioned or implied. You seemed to have seen a change between white and clear decal paper, I didn't.

Instead of looking for a printer that can print white, try using laser foil. It's a special film for colorizing the printing from a b&w laser printer or photocopier. It's available in a variety of metallic and non-metallic colors, under such names as CopyFX, Createx Foil, Color Tag, Desktop Color Foil, and LaserColor. Look for it at craft, stationery, or office supply stores.

The way it works is that you print normally using a b&w laser printer, on paper (or in your case, clear decal film). Then tape a sheet of the laser foil over top, and run it through the laser printer again, printing a blank page. Peel away the film, and you'll find that the foil has stuck to the toner, so everything that was black is now colored.

Some brands also have a device for heating & fusing the foil to the printout, but a laser printer should do the job just as well.

If you don't have access to a laser printer, a good photocopier will also work, as long as it produces a nice crisp black image.

You said in another message that your goal is to make replacement labels for a computer keyboard. Instead of using decal film, I'd suggest using clear self-adhesive address labels, which you can find at stationery & office supply stores. They'll be easier to apply, and probably more durable.

Thanks for that tip, it sounds cheaper than an ALPS printer :-)

Funny enough, I cannot seem to find any. The only thing I can get for now is Letraset, but not in the right sizes or styles.

Yes, that is the idea. I cannot scratch with my fingernail the decals on the laptop keys, but I can see they are decals of some kind with clear film (or varnish) around the letters.

Yes, although I could not find the right size or style yet.

My other option is to make a mask and spray the key, followed by varnish. I would like to avoid that, but it is IMHO a better option than making anything of some thickness to stick on the keys.

Ah, that is a pretty good idea!

Ok, lets top post, Dr. Spiff.

Yes, MD-5500s fetch a fortune in USA. But if you live in Japan (like Gernot) you can pick it up retail for about $500US!

If I was in Gernot's shoes I would pick one up in a heartbeat! Once you start using one of those printers you realize how much better it is than other consumer printers for printing decals!

Peteski

BIll, I think that what he was trying to say is that inkjet printed decals are transparent due to the nature of the inks used. If printed on clear film they'll have no white background. If applied over a white model they'll look perfect. But if applied over a draker colored model the decal will change color/dissapear.

For example if you inkjet printed a British roundel on clear film and applied over a dark green colored model the roundel's colors woudl be all wrong. The white areas will be transparent, the red areas will turn ugly brown and the blue will turn into darker blue/green. Alps inks are also transparent but since Alps can print white and has the ability to ovelay colors over white you'll end up with a decal that can be applied over dark model and they'll still look good.

Peteski

I was a bit too busy today to phone ALPS, but one can order from their website. Ipso facto, although it is in Japanese, you might be able to get somewhere with automatic translation.... or contact me for help. I'm ordering one this week. I cannot believe I did not consider this before!

Cheers, Gernot

Hmm.... that reminds me of how i used to label my homebrew electronics in the old days..... lay scotch tape on the roller of a typewriter (remember those?), type the label onto the tape; remove the tape and stick it onto the front panel, then lay another piece of magic tape over top of it.

in article snipped-for-privacy@72g2000hsu.googlegroups.com, Peter W. at snipped-for-privacy@my-deja.com wrote on 2/25/08 2:35 AM:

Thanks, Peteski. That's exactly what I was trying to say, although I see, in looking back at what I posted, I was a bit cryptic. In the meantime, I'm thinking that one might make do with an inkjet printer by doing it in two operations: first, on white paper, just the outline of the graphic; then, on clear paper, the colored graphic. One would then carefully cut out the white shape and apply it first. It still wouldn't be practical if the shape were complex and/or delicate.

Pip Moss

while we're on the subject, anybody have any experience with the dry transfer stuff, like letraset? aside from using it to label front panels of equipment, etc. this time of year, the hobby shops have all the boy scout wooden car stuff out with all the neato dry transfer decorations.

m,

i thought you meant if you ran the model through the printer so that it printed directly on the plastic, it wouldn't turn out as well as you'd hope.