Anyone know how I can get white transfers?

[centraltrains]

As per title? It's for text so cutting out white backed wouldn't work... Not sure what to do!

[Dunsignalling]

Letraset ?

[ianLMS]

Do you want water-slide transfers? If so, and have an inkjet printer, print your own - use white decal paper from Amazon, not clear! put the letters/numbers against a dark background that matches where you want to apply them and cut them out. 

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inkjet-Waterslide-Decal-Paper-Sheets/dp/B006DH7FDY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1517242937&sr=8-2&keywords=water+slide+paper+white

 

Transfers on attached picture were printed on the paper in the link via my inkjet printer and cut out. Cutting individual letters might not be so easy mind so you may want to buy them ready made.

 

Ian

Edited January 29, 2018 by ianLMS

[Pete the Elaner]

I was looking into this a while back (& still need some)

I came across this site: http://www.precisionlabels.com/colours.html

I have not tried them but expect to be doing do in a few months' time.

[66C]

As per title? It's for text so cutting out white backed wouldn't work... Not sure what to do!

 

Fox do general purpose lettering (waterslide transfers) in a variety of colours - have a look at:

 

https://fox-transfers.co.uk/general-alphabets-linings

 

Railtec also have a more limited range - have a look at:

 

http://www.railtec-models.com/catalog.php?type=5&gauge=4mm&region=1&xfer_type=misc

 

Regards.

[PaulCheffus]

I was looking into this a while back (& still need some)

I came across this site: http://www.precisionlabels.com/colours.html

I have not tried them but expect to be doing do in a few months' time.

Hi

 

I've used them several times. Excellent service and good quality.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[Anglian]

I've used them. Fabulous quality but you must make sure you either set your artwork up totally accurately or you will need to factor in the cost of paying John to do the artwork. I'm a professional designer so the artwork wasn't a problem but it can be complex.

When I did my first run I think I may have caught him at a bad time – he might have been very busy to be fair to him but when I did a job for a client of mine he was far, far more helpful to them than he had been to me! Be aware that every time he hits the button to print you get charged mistakes or not. There was a problem with my job as his set up instructions weren't precise enough so I had to paint in a line of dots the had appeared on my decals. I couldn't afford to have them printed a second time. In light of this he has amended the set up instructions. At the time I thought it was a bit off as the error had occurred because his instructions didn't tell me exactly how to set up the file. But he'd never had the problem happen before…

 

It's worth considering that he's done full size work for the NRM – that's how good he is. I have used another supplier who I found online – quality was very good but not totally amazing like Precision. I honestly can't recall their name. If you'd like to know have a dig around on the net and post some names here and I'll see if any ring a bell.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Anglian

[Bedders]

You can get white toner for laserjet, not sure if the same applies for inkjet - https://www.ghost-white-toner.com/model-builders/?lang=en

[railtec-models]

It's a topic that crops up with some regularity, so hopefully this may offer some guidance:

- Some people are happy to design their own artwork, buy blank decal paper and print onto it. This might not be for everybody but for those who are used to it, the results can be satisfactory. As Ian indicates however, this method does have its limitations, in that it only works optimally for certain types of designs, and it also requires you to be comfortable using a graphics package (or even just Word) and be prepared to spend time going through some likely trial and error to get the results you need. Home printers don't print white, so if you need white text or any bright colour to remain true once placed onto a (particularly dark) surface, then you'll need to get creative by trying to match the colour of the background in what you design. Even then the results can be variable as even trying to match a black colour is more tricky than you might think, and if you've printed on white paper to achieve a white or light colour, chances are it may have a relatively thick lip. But it's all in the eye of the beholder, ultimately.

- There are some companies who will take on custom requests, but the cost and "how long" is a piece of string. It will depend on the complexity of what is required, whether the artwork (note "artwork" as opposed to a jpg photo) needs to be recreated by hand, as well as required testing. Simple lettering and numbering for example would be very straight-forward. At the other end of the scale, asking for crests to be made when all we have is a grainy 3/4 angle small image from the 50s can be an absolute nightmare, bordering on unfeasible.

Some people simply prefer the convenience, and often high end quality, of having a decal manufacturer do it for them - and it certainly doesn't have to be expensive (straight-forward custom renumbering at Railtec starts at £1.30, just to give an idea). Depending on the quality of your printer at home, the difference in print quality may also be considerably noticeable to that produced by a professional machine which costs in the region of a small house. At the end of the day it's all about what results you're striving to achieve.

Some things to consider:

Spot printed vs full carrier film

- Some companies (Railtec and Fox being two of them) offer spot printed product. This means that you don't have to cut extremely close to the print in order to minimise the carrier film: you simply cut loosely around, place in water, and the transfer will only have the carrier film where it needs to be. Many believe it gives a better end result and it saves a lot of time-consuming preparation to minimise all the film of product that isn't spot printed. I've attached an image which helps illustrate this, and incidentally this is the exact transformation that Railtec went through approx 18 months ago when upgrading from a mix of old technologies which included Alps (also referred to as OKI, Kodak or Citizen Printiva) which had full carrier film, to the newer tech which doesn't:

 

 

In the spirit of fairness with my Railtec hat on I can say that I know there are many folks who have been very happy with Fox product also.

Handling & durability

- How the product is made will determine if it is able to withstand enamels, wayward fingernails and how kindly it will react to being soaked in solution and manoeuvred once roughly in place on the model. In the past when we had used Alps, some modellers found the print to be brittle, easily damaged and even disintegrate in some cases unless particular care was taken and there was some prior experience of using the product.

Print quality & print registration

- Home printers will generally give the poorest print quality with digital high-end beasts generally giving the best. When we had used Alps (somewhere more towards the home printer end of the market) it could hold its own with certain types of output, but the tech was limited to optimally printing specific colours, and if a different colour was required then combinations of different colour wax cartridges would be necessary. Each wax cartridge would have just a slightly different print registration to the previous cartridge, and/or "chip" where one colour was printed over another. The very slight difference in print registration between each colour pass would be more noticeable particularly in smaller scales. Standard laser home printers wouldn't have this issue although the quality of print risks being quite grainy in comparison to digital high-end.

Additionally, with the Alps method the wax cartridge would start at one of the sheet, print the first section, then have to return to the beginning of the carriage (like a typewriter) to continue printing what would often be the same physical transfer. Consequently it resulted in feint join lines being present, usually the case for transfers that were greater than (from memory) approx 20mm in height. For simple white or CMYKRGB transfers less than 20mm tall it was generally ok, though there was still always the bug-bear of too much extra carrier for our (and many customers') liking.

 

All in, there were just too many reasons to move technology and it generally seems to have been a universally welcomed decision to move away from the old and now unsupported home printers such as Alps and primarily towards a spot printed solution, not least by the likes of Pete Waterman, Bachmann, Peco and more. But again - it really all comes down to personal preference, the results you're looking for, how much you're prepared to spend and to some extent, feasibility of what you need.

There are quite a few examples around RMWeb as well as on social media.

Edited January 30, 2018 by railtec-models

[Anglian]

For those who are interested (like me) this the Railtec website link…

 

http://www.railtec-models.com

 

@Railtec,

 

What artwork formats do you work with – is Adobe Illustrator generated vector eps acceptable or do you prefer hi-res PDF? 

 

Do you have special requirements for overprinting of certain colours or do you prefer everything to knock-out?

 

For an A5 sheet of black and white decals could you give a typical price or is that impossible without seeing artwork first?

Edited January 29, 2018 by Anglian

[railtec-models]

Hi Anglian, any vector format should be fine. We live and breathe Illustrator and the Adobe suite 7 days a week, so an EPS is absolutely perfect. We try to be pretty flexible and offer folks the opportunity to send through artwork in whatever (albeit preferably CMYK vector) format they have without being too precious about what overprint settings it may have. Experienced graphic artists tend to send through artwork that's more or less ready to print, even though we might still make the odd tweak to best suit the calibration of the printer. In an ideal world everything would knock out, but if we receive artwork that doesn't then it's not really too much of a hassle for us to tweak it. If something rolls off the printer that doesn't reflect what's in the artwork, then that doesn't incur any additional cost - we just chalk it down to experience and figure out a way round it, but we're pretty well bedded in with the state-of-the-art tech now that we've got a good handle on it. Given your graphics experience it sounds like you may be familiar with there sometimes being a disconnect between what comes off the print bed and what's in the artwork! Keeps us on our toes.

Re the cost of an A5 sheet of black and white, it's difficult to commit to a cost without seeing what's involved. I'm frequently told at Warley and other shows that the costs are extremely reasonable ("surely it's more than that?" was the latest comment a couple of days ago), so I wouldn't anticipate it being anything close to a show-stopper. All artwork received is also held confidentially on file for future possible iterations at reduced cost. Every year we help Bachmann Europe with their catalog which often involves them sending us a lot of artwork so that prototype models of yet-to-be-announced releases can be created, so discretion and confidentiality is as important to us as quality of the product, just in case that was ever a concern.

Hope this helps,
Steve
 

Edited January 29, 2018 by railtec-models

[Anglian]

Hi Steve,

 

That's all fantastic. I shall definitely be using you in the future.