Good information laid out in a logical order. Professionally done, also. Well rehearsed so there is no stuttering or stammering. Kudos.

I wish I had time to do all that, I can't even find time to finish my customs. That is awesome being able to print your decals out at home, the possibilities are unlimited at that point.

I make my own decals and while using an inkjet, i always dreamt of having a ALPS. This completely changed my mind, as i wouldn't be able to deal with the low resolution. I had read about the Ghost and was curious, so now, i have a new goal: I need the Ghost! Can't wait for the video about it. Thank you Paul, great video!

Ive tried my hand at making decals, it didnt take long to decide ill just leave it to the professionals. This is great info though, thanks for doing this!

Thank you for all the valuable info on printers Paul.

Hi! So happy to see this presentation. There are a couple things that should come to light. Please understand that the graphics experience here starts in the 70s pre computer. In 1990 I bought a PC because the illustrations coming off Adobe Illustrator at the time were distorted because of the difficult handling of nodes and the necessity to peck in numbers just to get smple geometric shapes. The software chosen for the PC was not Adobe Illustrator. Adobe Illustrator wouldn't even install on a PC at that time. So, points would like to mention regarding Alps MD 1000. OH... you are SO RIGHT it is a prima dona... A fussy prima dona. It DOES take metallic ribbon cartridges, though. And... the resolution off a pc with vectors and with .jpgs and or .tiff files is good...very good. Many people who work in graphics don't have a complete understanding of bitmap/raster images. Believe me, when I starded out in 1990, it was an uphill battle. I aligned myself with a film output house those days and any questions I had hanging out were answered. Keep in mind PDFs create bloated files and there are distortions in the way of color, line widths and other details. PDFs are not the end all be all. There is also an earlier Alps here, as well. Hope this helps.

have you looked into UV inkjet printing. they can do CYMK + White + Clear. they print waterproof as the UV light instantly cures and bonds the ink to the surface. they can also print a bonding layer underneath the image which we use for printing on polished metals.

In the US of A Paul,more people seem to be hobbyists than here in the UK.I say that,as i used to make model aircraft.Everything from putty to paint to decals came from the states.Not much around then,there are a few willing to take the plunge, but not many.

Water transfer decals can be more fiddily than stick on decal a but usually the water transfer decals yield a more realistic look...

Excellent Paul! Can’t wait for part two!

Before I retired from the USAF at Hurlburt Field Florida, I was doing custom decaling on the Philippines wood models, new pilots from. Eglin were amazed I could add their name on the pilots canopy rail, squadron patch on the side of the aircraft, specific tail letters and a/c number, and the units tail band, for $50. I used the cheapest inkjet from Walmart back 2006 to 2009, I used 2 programs to create the decals, Draw and Microsoft PowerPoint. Its all I had and to be honest, most of my smallest decals were more legible than the same scale manufactured decals. Material since I bought in 100 sheet bulk wasn't too bad, hard part for me, even though I knew the correct paint color code (FS) and had those paints, the Philippines modeler didn't and I had to match THIER color..... and I am colorblind! Drove my wife and kids nuts, add more blue dad, more white dad, lighter gray dad... but once i had the paint formula i recorded it and that part was easy then, the other hurdle was creating the decals to the precise font, easy to remedy with a certain font, next was size of decal. Since I always had a 1/72 or 1/48 version i was working on as well as google internet search, I always added to the kit, a picture of their plane with the correct tail markings.

I've been thinking of picking up an Alps. I recently found out about the Ghost Toner and thought it would be perfect, but the problem with that is you cannot print BLACK and WHITE on the same decal as the white toner is used in place of the black. So, printing a decal like the 01 on the side of the General Lee isn't possible as it's a black number with a white border.

Hi Paul, great video. Rather than buying an old computer, maybe something like Virtualbox might help.

I've been creating decals for people for a while and I've found someone who has an Alps printer. The results are great but the technology is very old. I'm also a Mac guy and I draw my artwork in Illustrator but, because of the dot dither and a myriad of other issues (not leas the fact that it only runs via Windows XP) I have to create the artwork in a particular way so it can be converted via old software that is compatible with XP and therefore the Alps. That brings its own set of issues, not least some severe limitations of colour. Now that I've got my head around artwork preparation, I'm getting some exellent results now, but because of the ancient technology, I wouldn't even THINK about buying an Alps. I will take a look at Ghost though.

Great information Paul. Thank you. Looking forward to part 2.

Great information, thanks! I’m looking forward to your review of the Ghost printer. That looks like the way to go!

Ty for the information about decal making I am just getting into making my ow n decals making with help from friends

LOOKING FORWARD TO PART #2...GOOD INFO THANK'S....

I use my 22 year old Alps MD 1000 and my son's college Dell Latitude laptop. The Dell will not recognize a thumb drive. The only thing that works for transfer of artwork is floppy disk. I do all my artwork as a JPEG file. The printer does an adequate job on decals for HO scale model railroading in both white and black but sometimes more resolution is desired. Double printing (overlay) does help the density. Also the MD 1000 will print foil tapes. The laser printer with a white cartridge looks very interesting but investing in that superb printing format does not make economic sense for now. Enjoyed your commentary.

there is always an oldtimer way of doing decals mask and airbrush things on used decal paper after you use the oryginal on a cheep photo paper it will be up to you how well you mask the lines and shapes you want , but at least it won't be done on your model but on flat plane and you can use your model body paint as a background to cheat a little bit

Hey Paul. Any suggestions on a software I have a paint program but have to do a lot of test prints to figure out size. Appreciate any thoughts.

Holy crap. This is changes everything! I've been using the inket decals for my stuff because I didn't want to bother buying a laser printer if I couldn't print white, and I was literally just pricing old Alps stuff and realizing what a pain that would be to use. I really want to know more about this because $600 is something I could start saving for.

Thank you for this video. It has been a very good review for me. I have an Alps 1000 that I bought new around the turn of the century. I've used it for some decals quite a few years ago now and it's basically been in storage in the basement which is air conditioned and heated. I'm now getting ready to get back to creating some more for my HO railroad equipment. I purchased quite a few decal sheets from "Tango Poppa" (are you familiar with Tom?) To make sure that the decals haven't degraded over all these years of storage, also in the basement, I want to give them a protective coating of rattle can Testor lacquer gloss coat. Your thoughts on whether I should coat them before I print the decal or after? Any other tips would be appreciated. Thank you, Andy Keeney

I have some Testor water slide decal sheets that I would like to use, but it seems as though Testors no longer produces the decal bonder spray. Are there any alternative products?

Cheers buddy👍🏼

I'm looking at the canon version of this one now... I assume it would be as "simple" as taking my graphics for my diecast and making the image all black, print with ghost white and I could just print the colors on a second sheet and lay over?

Great info Paul. Can you make me some decals for my 72nd scale B-52?

hello friend, you make decal drawings projects on pud files. For printing on a printer.

I wish I had seen this before I bought my new laser printer to print my own decals, although it would have been a considerable investment the Ghost printer solution would have been a great choice. As you said it is possible to try and match the background colour of the model if using white background paper, but on close inspection you never get an exact match. And for those times I must have a GOOD white printed decal I can always ask Sideways King 75 if he would do a custom print sheet for me with my designs. ;-)

I imagine if you need a very specific decal of a very specific size you can be better off making your own decals rather than relying on an outside vendor...

Hello Paul. Thanks for the video. Do you sell finished decals and how would I go about ordering some from you?

I bet it saves a little $ to make your own decals... But on the other hand it costs a little $ to buy the necessary equipment to make your own custom decals...

Looks like this one is discontinued. Is there another option?

This couldn’t have been timed better, I’ve been looking at the Ghost printer options myself. How did you come to “about $700 for everything”, though? I’m looking at the HP M254dw and with the CMYB toners and a W toner, it’s more like $1,400. Any help appreciated! 👍

Hi.. best regards from Spain. Have you tried to print decals with UV flatbed printers like Roland Lef 20, or similar hardware. I experimented some issues like, thicknes of the printed decal p.e. Do you know how avoid those kind of issues?.

W🍩W, super helpful!

I think the easiest way is just send you a Flash drive and have you print all my decals The cost you say couple of Batman cars a Batman boat in the bed captor that's it easy-peasy

I thought this video was to show how to make decals. You haven't shown how to make them. Just talked about them.

Do. Not. Know. But. If. U. Say. So. I. Go. With. U Lee

All i've heard from this was "i have a printer that prints white and transparent decal paper, so send me your pdf's and i'll print them."

I imagine you had a bit of trial and error when learning how to make your own custom decals...

lip sink is way off

I’ve never experienced the difficulties in trying to make and adhere a 3mm x 2mm white watch dial decal depicting the Tudor shield or Rose logo (Rolex) with Geneva below at 3mm x 1.25mm. It’s a fun project not commercial. The decal material is too thick The ink Jets are too big amd so no crisp lines. Aaaaaaarrrrrrghhhh. The Swiss are too clever!!!!!! And the country is too beautiful also. It’s not fair😢