The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

I print many of my own decals using an HP 2544 inkjet. I have tried a few papers - Experts Choice, Bare Metal and Testors. The Testors is the only one so far that prints without beading up and produces lovely clear decals. I then spray them with Testors decal bonder in a rattle can.

A few years ago this all worked fine but the last two packs of Testors paper that I bought have just been sheer hell to get them to come off the backing paper. I just destroyed two more this morning after they had soaked for 45 minutes! I've tried really hot water and it doesn't really help plus it makes the decal so soft that it's really hard to stop it curling up if it does eventually come off the backing paper.

I am getting really frustrated. Any suggestions a) on how to get the decals to come off the paper; and b) other paper brands that print cleanly with HP inks.

Thanks for listening to my rant and for any help you can offer.

David

Sounds like the glue on the decals has activated possibly due to humidity. It may be they just don't have a long shelf life, I would contact Testors themselves.

I'm currently using Crafty Computer People's decal sheet but have noticed that decals I made several years ago have shrunk slightly on the model taking the paint with them and leaving a border of the base colour.

As a general tip you should always set the paper type to Glossy Photo paper in your printer settings. This causes the printer to work slower and use less ink since it sits on the surface rather than soaking into to normal plain paper.