Testing Epson Durabrite ink to make decals

Just in case someone's interested...

Epson says their durabrite ink is fade resistant so I decided to test if it's good to make decals. I printed a solid red area on standard decal paper, clearcoated and put it on a piece taken from a spare model. I also painted the area close to the decal with an enamel that matched the printed red, then sealed everything with a clearcoat and put the whole thing in a sealed transparent bag on top of my car box (so it's exposed to the sun all day). I also put inside the bag a piece of photopaper on which I had printed the same red area with my "old" (non-durabrite) printer.

I looked after one month of sun exposure and noticed that some water had leaked inside the bag: the normal ink is faded, while the durabrite one still looks like the painted red (only the acrylic clearcoat turned a bit dull because of the water).

I don't know how much of the standard ink fading is due to the sun and how much to the water, however seems the durabrite can stand both very well (for now). I think I'll put the whole thing inside a better sealed transparent box and test it for another couple of months, however for now the results seem nice.

P.S. I don't have any connection with Epson, apart from the fact that I bought their printer :)

Reply to
Yuri
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Interesting. What brand of decal paper did you use? Curt

Reply to
Curt

Thanks, good to know!

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Reply to
Keeper

Thanks for sharing that. Chuck

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Reply to
Cfbush2000

Very interesting Yuri, thanks. Especially as I just replaced one of the staff's classroom printers with that exact model. The photo prints are very fine indeed almost as good as our laser printer, but with a softer quality to them. I'll just have to find an excuse to 'liberate' it occasionally now.

Chek

Reply to
Chek

please tell us what brand of decal paper and was it white or clear?

Reply to
jack

To the ones who requested what brand of decal paper I used...

I used a micro-mark white decal paper. Not having the inkjet version at hand (and I dind't want to buy it just for a test) I used the regulard laser/copier one, I just sprayed a light coat of superscale/microscale clear flat on the decal sheet before printing to provide some "tooth" for the ink, then after printing I sealed the ink with the clear gloss (I doesn't seem necessary to seal the ink as it's quite water resistant once dry, however I think it's better to give a light gloss coat anyway, just for additional protection ...).

The inkjet decal paper should work even better and I'll test with it if the long-time fade resistant test is successful.

There shouldn't be any difference regarding fade-resistance between the clear and the white paper. Of course you need a white background unless you are just printing black or you are placing the decal over a white (or very light grey) model.

Reply to
Yuri

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