Question: home-made decals/white letters

[Anthony P]

Hi guys!
i have successfully made my own decals in the past, using commercially available clear decal film. I would now like to try something I have never tried, that has left me scratching my head

I would like to produce a ship's name in white letters... (to clarify, we are talking about a black-hulled civil Liberty ship here!). I know that neither laser nor inkjet printers contain white ink, and I should therefore use white decal film instead of clear, but how do you print white letters on white film???

My only thought so far is to look for a font for letters with black outlines that would then not be visible on the hull, but I find it a bit risky, as the hull will be heavily weathered.

All suggestions welcome!

Anthony

[arnobiz]

I'm afraid the only way to do it with white decal sheet is to print the contour in black and to cut them as close as possible...
But I think the best solution would be to buy dry transfers. Most fonts and sizes are available and it will be much much simpler!

[NukeMM]

I once tried to make white flight deck numbers for my USS Mindoro CVE-120. The FleetNet Kit only came with black numbers, some white, but not enough numerals to make "120".

What I tried was using MSWord and typing the numbers in black and in the right font (or close enough, can't remember now) putting each number in its own "text box" resizing the text box to the correct size and printing samples on plain paper as I went.

Then, I reverse-negatived the text or actually made the text white and the fill color of the text box was black.

I then printed them out on white inkjet decal paper. They were working, but very flimmsie. My first try at making my own. I probably should have put more spray on them.

When I got to the ship's name on the stern, which was also white, I gave up trying to cut the tiny little decals.

I asked Mark at Starfighter Decals to make some custom flight deck numbers, hull numbers, island numbers and stern ship's name in white, for me. I offered Mark $20 (it was worth it to me) and he made four sets of each, for me, just in case I screwed some of them up. Which I did. I provided him with exact measurements of the numbers and letters and sample of the font style. The aft and foreward flight deck numbers were slightly different in size on this class of CVEs.

Mark expedited my order for I was making the model for my Dad for Christmas and I started it on December 1st. Mark was fast in the turn around.

I would think that Darren at The Resin Shipyard / Hawk Graphics might do the same thing. He offers some other decals for custom orders.

[Will J]

What I tend to do is to use white decal paper, then design the decal and use a fill color of whatever I'm transferring onto. E.g a white DD number with a grey fill behing it. You can match paints very well with a good printer.