Decal printing fail

[Sidney Schwartz]

I decided to try printing my own decals after not having done it for quite a while. The decal paper my local hobby store had is from Stevens International. The actual width of this T-bird logo I printed on my Epson XP-4100 is about 1/2 inch. The top image shows the decal immediately after printing, the bottom image shows the same decal after having sat a few minutes. As you can see there is significant degradation. I'm happy with the decal as it first prints, but it becomes useless. I've emailed this same pic to the manufacturer, but I thought I'd post it here too because the folks here are so knowledgeable and may give me a better answer. What causes this and how do I prevent it. Is the paper just no good? I've ordered a different brand of paper on Amazon and it should get here tomorrow. I don't recall having problems like this when I've previously printed my own decals.

[stitchdup]

is it the correct ink? i'd suspect it before the paper just from how it looks. to me it appears the ink hasn't stuck so is probably the wrong type for the paper.

[peteski]

Yes, the ink looks like it beaded up on the surface.  I would suspect that this is not ink jet specific paper, or maybe that it is not printed using a correct print mode (whatever is supposed to be used for decal printing).  I don't believe there are special ink jet inks just for decal paper.  The paper is supposed to have ink absorbing coating so the ink soaks into it instead of beading up.

[Bainford]

There are specific decal papers for either inkjet or laser printers, and you have to use the correct one for your printer. From descriptions I’ve heard from other modellers, I suspect this is a case of the wrong paper. 

[Sidney Schwartz]

The words "for laser printer" on the label should have tipped me off. Sigh. The other decal paper I ordered says it's for ink jet printers, so that should work. Lesson learned. Again. I'm 70 years old...when can I stop learning these #@$!$^@!! lessons? ?

[Dpate]

34 minutes ago, Sidney Schwartz said:

The words "for laser printer" on the label should have tipped me off. Sigh. The other decal paper I ordered says it's for ink jet printers, so that should work. Lesson learned. Again. I'm 70 years old...when can I stop learning these #@$!$^@!! lessons? ?

We never stop learning. One man’s lesson learned is another man’s knowledge. 

[Sidney Schwartz]

2 hours ago, Dpate said:

We never stop learning. One man’s lesson learned is another man’s knowledge. 

I was hoping for sympathy rather than reality, but thanks anyway. ?

[gman]

In the sympathy category, I had the same happen with ink jet decal paper in my Epson printer- the ink beaded up on the paper and distorted the printed image. I tried a few things including rubbing the decal paper area to be printed with an eraser, which only marginally made a difference. Different printer modes did not make much difference. Some printers and their inks just work better for decal paper than others. I've still got the Epson printer, and haven't tried again- I may have another go when the printer gets replaced.

[Kit Basher]

3 hours ago, gman said:

In the sympathy category, I had the same happen with ink jet decal paper in my Epson printer- the ink beaded up on the paper and distorted the printed image. I tried a few things including rubbing the decal paper area to be printed with an eraser, which only marginally made a difference. Different printer modes did not make much difference. Some printers and their inks just work better for decal paper than others. I've still got the Epson printer, and haven't tried again- I may have another go when the printer gets replaced.

I've had the same experience as Greg. I could not get good images with the Epson printer, even with inkjet decal paper. The Epson would print the image perfectly on photo paper, but I tried a couple different brands of decal paper and no luck. An old HP printer worked fine, on the same paper. I think there must be something about the way an Epson prints that doesn't like decal paper. I hope you have better luck.

[peteski]

Owning the MicroDry Alps printer, printing on laser decal paper I don't have any of those liquid ink problems, but even Alps is not perfect. 

[Sidney Schwartz]

Now we're talkin'. Works fine with the ink jet paper. Looks pretty much like it does on the screen. Now that I know it works I can try and find better images. ?

[Chariots of Fire]

On 5/4/2023 at 3:53 PM, peteski said:

Owning the MicroDry Alps printer, printing on laser decal paper I don't have any of those liquid ink problems, but even Alps is not perfect. 

I'm with you, Peter.  Very small decals are hard to reproduce even with the ALPS due to the pixelization methods the printer uses to create the various colors.  I'm glad to have mine though and it works for just about all the decals I would want to produce.

[peteski]

36 minutes ago, Chariots of Fire said:

I'm with you, Peter.  Very small decals are hard to reproduce even with the ALPS due to the pixelization methods the printer uses to create the various colors.  I'm glad to have mine though and it works for just about all the decals I would want to produce.

Yes, the halftones Alps uses to create various colors are rather coarse, but there is a solution for most of them. I haven't seen your name on the Alps group I moderate, so you might not be aware of a company called Elephant's Rocket in Japan.  They service Alps printers, and also offer a large selection of their own Alps color ribbons.  So with some spot color printing you can come up with solid colors not achievable using standard CYMK inks.  The ink cartridges are rather pricey, but to me worth it.  You get a discount is you buy a complete set of colors (that's what I did).  The website is rather cryptic and confusing (as it is created by a Japanese individual with not very good grasp of English), but the ink cartridges are a Godsend.   The inks are listed at https://www.paoon.com/decal/aybhkdabq.html

Colors like grays, browns, cream, light blue, and many others are now possible.  I bought the enter set of 20.

[Chariots of Fire]

3 hours ago, peteski said:

Yes, the halftones Alps uses to create various colors are rather coarse, but there is a solution for most of them. I haven't seen your name on the Alps group I moderate, so you might not be aware of a company called Elephant's Rocket in Japan.  They service Alps printers, and also offer a large selection of their own Alps color ribbons.  So with some spot color printing you can come up with solid colors not achievable using standard CYMK inks.  The ink cartridges are rather pricey, but to me worth it.  You get a discount is you buy a complete set of colors (that's what I did).  The website is rather cryptic and confusing (as it is created by a Japanese individual with not very good grasp of English), but the ink cartridges are a Godsend.   The inks are listed at https://www.paoon.com/decal/aybhkdabq.html

Colors like grays, browns, cream, light blue, and many others are now possible.  I bought the enter set of 20.

Thanks, Peter.  Will check it out.  Never knew the group existed!

[peteski]

42 minutes ago, Chariots of Fire said:

Thanks, Peter.  Will check it out.  Never knew the group existed!

You're welcome Charlie. Yes, the group has been around for few decades.  Originally there were 2 Yahoo Alps groups, but when Yahoo killed the groups we created a single group on groups.io website.  The link to the group is https://alps.groups.io/g/ALPS  .  It is an email group, but it can also be accessed through the web interface (very similar to this forum). That is how I participate in it.  It is not very active nowadays, but there are still 2700 members, and the groups archives and Files section have lotos of useful info about the ALps printers and printing techniques.

[oldcarfan]

I tried ink jet printing on laser paper and it looked like this. So that's my guess.