Nelson Gietz wrote: > The suggestion from Bill Morris: > "Supercal White Letter Inkjet Decal kits at www.paper-paper.com" > ...looks like a solution to achieve white lettering using an inkjet printer. > Nelson
This stuff looks fascinating. Anyone know how it works? Does the white powder fuse directly onto the black ink, thereby covering it up? If so, does it really make a completely opaque cover (so none of the black shows through), but with crisp clear edges?
Or are there two layers involved, so that the black ink is removed later in the process (perhaps during the water-soak)?
>> The suggestion from Bill Morris: >> "Supercal White Letter Inkjet Decal kits at www.paper-paper.com" >> ...looks like a solution to achieve white lettering using an inkjet >> printer. >> Nelson
> This stuff looks fascinating. Anyone know how it works? Does the white > powder fuse directly onto the black ink, thereby covering it up? If so, > does it really make a completely opaque cover (so none of the black > shows through), but with crisp clear edges?
> Or are there two layers involved, so that the black ink is removed later > in the process (perhaps during the water-soak)?
I don't know, but I may be willing to find out....
I was at a hobby shop yesterday, and saw a product made by Testors (the model paint and glue folks) that looks a lot like the supercal product. same inkjet waterslide stuff and spray can. See it here:
If it can actually do passable white-on-clear with a standard inkjet I'd buy it in a heartbeat, as I have an SX-110 with a broken glass, and I've been waiting for over a year for the usual sources to start carrying it. (one says they will, Real Soon Now). Has anyone tried this?
-Scott
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> "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terr...@earthlink.net> wrote in message > news:42175681.F5BA2D58@earthlink.net... > > Please tell us all the brand and model of printer you have that uses > > a white cartridge and where we can all buy one!
> If I can put a black piece of paper in and print white letters on it, > um...EVERY ONE I"VE EVER OWNED...
> You're thinking typewriters or something and so you think too hard...LOL
I probably have 20 color inkjet printers right now and not one of them can do white. No matter how you mix three colors and black you don't get white.
-- Beware of those who suffer from delusions of adequacy!
Randy I know about the ALPS printers, but they aren't your everyday consumer grade printer. They have been discussed on some of the electronics groups for making custom lettered front panels. I was told that ALPS had dropped all the printers that could print white and the only way to get one was a used equipment dealer or Ebay.
-- Beware of those who suffer from delusions of adequacy!
> If it can actually do passable white-on-clear with a standard inkjet I'd > buy it in a heartbeat, as I have an SX-110 with a broken glass, and I've > been waiting for over a year for the usual sources to start carrying it. > (one says they will, Real Soon Now). Has anyone tried this?
> -Scott
The problem with a decal for this type of dial are the large areas of clear. In my experience they will be foggy looking because you're gonna be looking thru the less than perfect transparency of the decal stock. Any little bubbles, etc in the application process will show up.
>> If it can actually do passable white-on-clear with a standard inkjet >> I'd buy it in a heartbeat, as I have an SX-110 with a broken glass, >> and I've been waiting for over a year for the usual sources to start >> carrying it. (one says they will, Real Soon Now). Has anyone tried this?
>> -Scott
> The problem with a decal for this type of dial are the large areas of > clear. In my experience they will be foggy looking because you're gonna > be looking thru the less than perfect transparency of the decal stock. > Any little bubbles, etc in the application process will show up.
It seems to me that much of that issue could be eliminated by making several decals...one for each bandspread scale on the dial, and VERY CAREFUL cutting to size and placement of the decal on the glass. It will still show somewhat, but it probably won't look too bad since the background is black.
Right now, I'm just wondering if printing a white-on-clear decal on an ordinary HP deskjet is possible AT ALL. The links posted earlier for white decal stock seem to imply that it is, but I'm somewhat skeptical.
-Scott
-- DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS ABOVE! Instead, go to the following web page to get my real email address: http://member.newsguy.com/~polezi/scottsaddy.htm (This has been done because I am sick of SPAMMERS making my email unusable)
> It seems to me that much of that issue could be eliminated by making > several decals...one for each bandspread scale on the dial, and VERY > CAREFUL cutting to size and placement of the decal on the glass. It will > still show somewhat, but it probably won't look too bad since the > background is black.
I thought about saying that but trying to align a foot long x 1/4" piece of decal nice and straight is MUCH EASIER said than done. There's a lot of stretch in a piece that size. Major amounts of screwing around with a wet decal may cause ink loss.
> Right now, I'm just wondering if printing a white-on-clear decal on an > ordinary HP deskjet is possible AT ALL. The links posted earlier for > white decal stock seem to imply that it is, but I'm somewhat skeptical.
If I could line up two "customers" needing this dial printed and would be willing to pay about 10-15 each I could get them printed by my "secret source". You could cut them into strips or whatever. Personally I'd lay the whole decal down then use an xacto to cut and peel up the open areas.
> Randy I know about the ALPS printers, but they aren't your everyday > consumer grade printer. They have been discussed on some of the > electronics groups for making custom lettered front panels. I was told > that ALPS had dropped all the printers that could print white and the > only way to get one was a used equipment dealer or Ebay.
Agreed. these printers cost pretty big bucks new or used, and the reliability of them is nothing to write home about. Still, they (and the also-discontinued Citizen printers that use the same cartridges) remain the only printers in the three-figure price range that can do white printing, dye-sublimation printing, and printing onto foil. It is probably for these reasons that these printers still command a premium on eBay.
-Scott
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>> It seems to me that much of that issue could be eliminated by making >> several decals...one for each bandspread scale on the dial, and VERY >> CAREFUL cutting to size and placement of the decal on the glass. It >> will still show somewhat, but it probably won't look too bad since the >> background is black.
> I thought about saying that but trying to align a foot long x 1/4" piece > of decal nice and straight is MUCH EASIER said than done. There's a lot > of stretch in a piece that size. Major amounts of screwing around with > a wet decal may cause ink loss.
Yeah, no question about it.....It wouldn't be EASY! If I was going to attempt something like this, I would probably print out something like 4 of 5 dupes of each decal in one shot as spares to deal with inevitable screw-ups.
Still, It can be done. There's a guy I know who does models and he has the decal application thing down pat. I've seen some stuff he's done that has extremely long decals applied flawlessly. I asked him what his technique was, and he told me it's something you can't really teach, each person has got to just develop their own technique that works. (kinda like cabinet restoration).
-Scott
-- DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS ABOVE! Instead, go to the following web page to get my real email address: http://member.newsguy.com/~polezi/scottsaddy.htm (This has been done because I am sick of SPAMMERS making my email unusable)
> > Randy I know about the ALPS printers, but they aren't your everyday > > consumer grade printer. They have been discussed on some of the > > electronics groups for making custom lettered front panels. I was told > > that ALPS had dropped all the printers that could print white and the > > only way to get one was a used equipment dealer or Ebay.
> Agreed. these printers cost pretty big bucks new or used, and the > reliability of them is nothing to write home about. Still, they (and the > also-discontinued Citizen printers that use the same cartridges) remain > the only printers in the three-figure price range that can do white > printing, dye-sublimation printing, and printing onto foil. It is > probably for these reasons that these printers still command a premium > on eBay.
> -Scott
Just speculatin' now.... but if someone on the n.g. HAD an ALPS printer, how many people would be interested in getting prints made of their high quality .jpg files onto transfer film, and at what price? No, I don't have one. Nelson
> Just speculatin' now.... but if someone on the n.g. HAD an ALPS printer, > how many people would be interested in getting prints made of their high > quality .jpg files onto transfer film, and at what price? No, I don't have > one. > Nelson
I investigated this thoroughly a few years ago before deciding NOT to buy an ALPS printer. Here are the issues... The consumables for an ALPS are fairly expensive. Yes, the machine can do gold, silver and white. What it cannot always do is to reproduce colors accurately or produce good opaque colors without a white base underneath. Many combinations require two passes thru the machine and a blessing from the angels above for perfect alignment registration. Cost for each try is about a buck in wasted media and ink. The machine itself wears out fairly rapidly compared to something like a commonplace inkjet/laserjet. Anybody who has used one for any type of 'commercial' demands will tell you that if you get a year out of it then you are lucky. Finding a GOOD used one on the market is nigh impossible. The main reasons used ones sell at any price is because of an exchange/discount program that ALPS once had. There's a reason why ALPS backed off of a very good market.
The other part of the issue is regarding simply zipping off copies of what folks might send you to print. To them, their artwork may look good but once properly sized and formatted for printing it looks like crap. Mike T taught me that lesson long ago. I sent him various things for printing and he pointed out the details that were going to result in a lousy print. For example, you don't take a 16 million color jpeg and pass it thru a printer with 3 ink color options and get exactly what you see on your screen. You don't take a 72-pix/inch default image from PaintShop and pass it thru a 1400 dots/inch printer without the result looking like it was carved with a chainsaw. Even a simple B/W image can be full of artifacts that the original 'creator' doesn't see on the screen but the printer will see. NOT using jpeg for this type of work is the first rule.
Sorry to make a short story long but this is why a guy doesn't simply scarf up a used ALPS printer on ebay for $135 and go into bizness.
Bill M wrote: > I investigated this thoroughly a few years ago before deciding NOT to > buy an ALPS printer. Here are the issues... > The consumables for an ALPS are fairly expensive. Yes, the machine can > do gold, silver and white. What it cannot always do is to reproduce > colors accurately or produce good opaque colors without a white base > underneath. Many combinations require two passes thru the machine and a > blessing from the angels above for perfect alignment registration. Cost > for each try is about a buck in wasted media and ink. > The machine itself wears out fairly rapidly compared to something like a > commonplace inkjet/laserjet.
{middle bit snipped}
> Sorry to make a short story long but this is why a guy doesn't simply > scarf up a used ALPS printer on ebay for $135 and go into bizness.
No but commercial banner print shops (the big ones that make serious banners, etc.) certainly can and do buy printers capable of not only printing in white (true opaque white) - but on solid thick (inch plus) substrates such as metal, wood, leather and plastic (I haven't seen glass mentioned specifically - but if they can do metal - glass shouldn't be too difficult). Since these can do other colors as well - (they hold either 8 or 16 cartridges at a time - again depending on model) - multi-color reverse painted dials should be do-able as well.
For those that might be interested - find a print shop with a Durst Rho 250. They use UV ink that isn't too expensive, etc. - and allows these shops to run prototypes, etc. at very competitive prices -- you might see if some chocolate chip cookies gain you a favor).
Re: the Alps piece of junk printers - I guess I just didn't realize how bad they are - to the trash with mine! naw - on second thought - I think I can squeeze a few more prints out of it...
best regards... -- randy guttery
A Tender Tale - a page dedicated to those Ships and Crews so vital to the United States Silent Service: http://tendertale.com
> >> It seems to me that much of that issue could be eliminated by making > >> several decals...one for each bandspread scale on the dial, and VERY > >> CAREFUL cutting to size and placement of the decal on the glass. It > >> will still show somewhat, but it probably won't look too bad since the > >> background is black.
> > I thought about saying that but trying to align a foot long x 1/4" piece > > of decal nice and straight is MUCH EASIER said than done. There's a lot > > of stretch in a piece that size. Major amounts of screwing around with > > a wet decal may cause ink loss.
> Yeah, no question about it.....It wouldn't be EASY! If I was going to > attempt something like this, I would probably print out something like 4 > of 5 dupes of each decal in one shot as spares to deal with inevitable > screw-ups.
> Still, It can be done. There's a guy I know who does models and he has > the decal application thing down pat. I've seen some stuff he's done > that has extremely long decals applied flawlessly. I asked him what his > technique was, and he told me it's something you can't really teach, > each person has got to just develop their own technique that works. > (kinda like cabinet restoration).
> -Scott
> -- > DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS ABOVE! > Instead, go to the following web page to get my real email address: > http://member.newsguy.com/~polezi/scottsaddy.htm > (This has been done because I am sick of SPAMMERS making my email unusable)
> I investigated this thoroughly a few years ago before deciding NOT to > buy an ALPS printer. Here are the issues... > The consumables for an ALPS are fairly expensive. Yes, the machine can > do gold, silver and white. What it cannot always do is to reproduce > colors accurately or produce good opaque colors without a white base > underneath. Many combinations require two passes thru the machine and a > blessing from the angels above for perfect alignment registration. Cost > for each try is about a buck in wasted media and ink. > The machine itself wears out fairly rapidly compared to something like a > commonplace inkjet/laserjet. Anybody who has used one for any type of > 'commercial' demands will tell you that if you get a year out of it then > you are lucky. Finding a GOOD used one on the market is nigh > impossible. The main reasons used ones sell at any price is because of > an exchange/discount program that ALPS once had. > There's a reason why ALPS backed off of a very good market.
Bill is, unfortunately, absolutely correct. The company where I work has a technical publications/graphics arts department that has the equipment to do almost anything. They bought a bunch of these ALPS printers with the idea of using them for small, one-off jobs that would be overkill to do on the large printers.
The quality of the output was absolutely gorgeous, but the reliability of the printers sucked. They had maybe a half-dozen of them and they were all malfunctioning within six months or so of purchase.
The real reason that the printers were discontinued was that they were simply not cost competitive. Although they were geared for the consumer market (Fry's and Costco were selling them for awhile), an HP inkjet could do 95% of what the ALPS could do at one-third the price. How many consumers really give a damn about printing white-on-black or printing on foil? Ultimately the sales necessary to keep production going were just not there.
That's too bad....The ALPS printers are unique, in spite of their problems. For printing white text, they are quite good....and there ain't a lot of competition to them in that regard.
> The other part of the issue is regarding simply zipping off copies of > what folks might send you to print. To them, their artwork may look > good but once properly sized and formatted for printing it looks like > crap. Mike T taught me that lesson long ago. I sent him various things > for printing and he pointed out the details that were going to result in > a lousy print. For example, you don't take a 16 million color jpeg and > pass it thru a printer with 3 ink color options and get exactly what you > see on your screen. You don't take a 72-pix/inch default image from > PaintShop and pass it thru a 1400 dots/inch printer without the result > looking like it was carved with a chainsaw. Even a simple B/W image can > be full of artifacts that the original 'creator' doesn't see on the > screen but the printer will see. NOT using jpeg for this type of work > is the first rule.
Yep, absolutely true. No one who does this commercially uses JPEGs. It's always TIFF or some other lossless format, and always as close in resolution to the output device as possible. The commercial houses also use calibrators to get the on-screen colors to match what the printer actually prints. Some of these files can easily exceed 100MB in size, not exactly ideal for sending over the ether.
As for B&W prints, don't get me started. Rendering them correctly on most color inkjets is damn near impossible. They will invariably come out slightly blue or slightly green. HP is said to have special cartridges for some of their printers that are designed specifically for B&W printing and are supposed to eliminate this problem, but I have never tried them.
-Scott
-- DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS ABOVE! Instead, go to the following web page to get my real email address: http://member.newsguy.com/~polezi/scottsaddy.htm (This has been done because I am sick of SPAMMERS making my email unusable)
> Re: the Alps piece of junk printers - I guess I just didn't realize how > bad they are - to the trash with mine! naw - on second thought - I think > I can squeeze a few more prints out of it...
> best regards...
So does that mean you're volunteering to do some white decal prints for the guys needing them?
Bill M wrote: > So does that mean you're volunteering to do some white decal prints for > the guys needing them?
No, I don't think so - let the guys who do this for a living do it right. I have no interest in having my crappie work - done on my crappie printer -- blamed for someone else's *less than wonderful* artwork - or bungling a decal application. Thanks, but no thanks.
BTW - I guess I should mark this post as Off Topic here in the "Social Security & the US Government Sucks" Newsgroup. I'll have to "fix" my newsreader to ignore this group - I have no idea how I got subscribed to it - but I'll fix that now.
best regards... -- randy guttery
A Tender Tale - a page dedicated to those Ships and Crews so vital to the United States Silent Service: http://tendertale.com
> > I investigated this thoroughly a few years ago before deciding NOT to > > buy an ALPS printer. Here are the issues... (Snip) > Bill is, unfortunately, absolutely correct.
> As for B&W prints, don't get me started. Rendering them correctly on most > color inkjets is damn near impossible. They will invariably come out > slightly blue or slightly green. HP is said to have special cartridges for > some of their printers that are designed specifically for B&W printing and > are supposed to eliminate this problem, but I have never tried them.
> -Scott
Even with the Print with Black Cartridge only setting(s) or the color cartridge removed?
Works for me every time on my HP 5150. The black ink (in my cartridge) looks black to me.
I believe Kinkos can print to a decal. And, a flat bed printer might be able to print directly onto the glass, though that's a long shot. There is also "transfer lettering" - I suppose you can still buy that stuff
"Phil Nelson" <philnel...@nospam.xyz> wrote in message
> Nice job of recreating the dial. How about phoning Kinko's and asking if > they have a computer hooked to a printer that can do a color printout onto a > sheet of clear acetate? If the original dial is white lettering on clear > glass, I guess you would want to replace the black in your image with > "transparent." You could also phone around to art shops (T-shirt shops, > whatever) and try to find someone who can take a computer image and > silk-screen it onto glass, but that might exceed your budget.
The guy I spoke to at Kinkos assured me they cannot print white. I didn't ask about a decal.
After thinking about this for a while now, I'm amazed that nobody sells an inkjet cartridge containing white ink, that could be used in place of the black cartridge in a common inkjet printer.
Come to that, how easy would it be to find suitable white ink and fill an empty (well cleaned) black cartridge?
jjbunn wrote: > The guy I spoke to at Kinkos assured me they cannot print white. I > didn't ask about a decal.
> After thinking about this for a while now, I'm amazed that nobody sells > an inkjet cartridge containing white ink, that could be used in place > of the black cartridge in a common inkjet printer.
> Come to that, how easy would it be to find suitable white ink and fill > an empty (well cleaned) black cartridge?
The white inks I have seen that would be up to the job are too thick, almost like paint. You would have to thin the hell out of them to get them to jet properly, if at all. Doing so would make the ink watery and transparent, destroying the effect you are trying to achieve.
Printing white on a standard inkjet is truly the holy grail of printing. Whoever figures out how to do it will have a nice, tidy niche market all to himself.
Until that day comes, the only way I can think of that will work is silkscreening.....Damned expensive and/or time consuming for a one-off dialglass.
-Scott
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> The guy I spoke to at Kinkos assured me they cannot print white. I > didn't ask about a decal.
> After thinking about this for a while now, I'm amazed that nobody sells > an inkjet cartridge containing white ink, that could be used in place > of the black cartridge in a common inkjet printer.
> Come to that, how easy would it be to find suitable white ink and fill > an empty (well cleaned) black cartridge?
I don't really understand why white ink is any more difficult than black ink (for example) to get to jet properly. Why doesn't black ink come out watery and transparent? My naive assumption was that the colour is determined by the pigments in the ink solution, and so why would the jet care if they were black or white? I guess I should read up on inkjet technology :-)
