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 :)
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
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.
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