Australian Slot Car Racers Association

Hey,..this Isn't actually a 'How To' as such,..More a "this is what I did",...kinda Report !!,..lol

Not feeling in Any way 'Daunted' by the prospect of Creating Decals as such,..mainly as I had done Quite a Bit of Graphics Work and assemblage of Logos etc, when I was 'Painting Cars' for On Line SIM Racing,..so in some ways, I Had a Lot of the Artwork I needed.

So of I went and purchased (what will prove to be an almost Lifetime supply,..lol) of Both Clear and White Decal Paper for Inkjet Printers.
Now I Had intended to ONLY buy 10 Sheets of each, but Foolishly, I told them 25 !!!,..Doh !,..Oh well, it Now Only works out at about $2.00 a Sheet,..Minus the Many Hours Work Positioning and Sizing the Artwork !!,..lol

The Decal Paper I am using you can find via http://www.decalpaper.com.au plus a can of the appropriate Clear Acrylic to 'seal' the finished decals with before application.
Items purchased from Nova Sublimation and the acrylic spray is a Scopa product, called 'Crystal Clear' and is specifically for Inkjet decal paper.

This all started, because I had a couple of Projects I Could Make use of Custom Decals for, Plus I was looking at the Truescale Ferraris,Matra F1 and Lotus 56 Indy Turbine bodies and thinking how nice they would look, Done Properly and thought,..Heck,..I can Do that !!!
Hmmm,..Well,..Yes,..I can,..or atleast,..Part of it.
Problem is with this method,..one Can't Create White !!,..so you Kind of have to Think Outside the Square,..Which,..sometimes, Just Simply Can't be Done.

So although this Method Is Extremely Useful, depending on What you are trying to create, it Might be Difficult, or Impossible.
In fact One of the projects I had in Mind, may Now need Complete Decals, incorporating the Body Colour and 'White' Parts pronted as one on White Paper. Making the White lettering on the Matra is Still going to be Hard,..DOH !!

Atleast I have Lotus, Shell, Ferrari, Matra, Ferodo, Champion, Koni, STP, American (Amoco) and Elf stickers, so far,...

Am going to Have to Make up a Custom Graphic for the Lotus Turbine though, as I Cannot find Any artwork for the Wagner Lockheed Brake Parts Logo used on the car,..then again it IS a lot of Photoshop Work, for Such a Tiny Decal !!!,..lol
Fortunately, for that Project,..it Might Just Work OK,..(I will Post Pics of Anything that get's done this way and the outcome/results).

So apart from having a Devil of a time cutting the Decals out,..I Lost the Front B&W Matra Logo, as it was So Small,..DOH !!,..(note to self, get a better Pair of Curved scissors!!), they Printed Up well, had Good Colour,..Did Not Run etc when Coated with the Acryllic Sealer, (I applied about 3 to 4 even light coats followed by 2 wetter coats), plenty of drying time etc,..

The application which was to be Done on the Inside of the Lexan Bodies, has gone OK,..so far !!!,...lol

I was also Also trying out a Local brand of Acrylic Glazing type medium, to Help the decals adhere and to Seal them from behind with, so did Not actually Manage to get a couple of them 'Seated' as well as I would Like,..Close!, but Not Perfect !!
The Medium is made locally in Marrickville, by GLOBAL Colours and is a waterbased acrylic 'binder' and although initially 'milky', dries crystal clear.
This seems to work very well,..but we will see, it was what in Fact made seating the decal a bit Hard, but I think it will work well sealing the decal after application.

I did Notice that the decals did Not seem to Like "Mr Mark Softer", so I will do some Decal setiing solution tests and report back.

Here's a Pic,..so Far.


Note: The Injection Stacks are from 'The Parts Box' and can be purchased via HSC,..Wayne has a Cattledog!

Good one Stoo.
It's a challenge to get them right, but also very rewarding when they turn out the way you had hoped.

I did a similar thing a few years ago here on SSME site

There is a great 'How To' here on Auslot by dr vanski.
I just wish he had posted it before I tried to make decals. Would have saved a lot of time, but there is still a lot of great stuff that helps with a lot more detail.

Hey!,..thanks for those 'Links' Steve !!

I was thinking of Doing virtually Exactly as the article on Ausslot, for My Jdavid project, as it Should work out rather well, both because of the 'Relative' simplicity of the Graphics and the Flat sided car it will be applied to.

He has done a Pretty Damn Good Job of Colour matching though!!

can i sujest to try using a program called "coral draw".
it allows you to size (by 1/100th mm) at any side, warp, skew, etc do whatever you want while keeping extremely high presision graphics.