"White on transparent decals for bases" Topic

Bit of a long shot this one chaps…

Having invested in some WW1 ships I'm trying to get white on transparent transfers for the bases. I've been in touch with a model railway transfer supplier who can do this but the cost is prohibitive – about £70.00 GBP ($100?) – for an A4 sheet with every ship for Dogger Bank and Jutland printed in calibri font size 8.

Obviously there are economies of scale which I've asked about. In theory would anyone be interested in splitting the cost? If five people were interested then this should come to less than $20 USD each I reckon.

Here are the problems as I see it (best to up front):

1) No samples up front so untested product – bit risky
2) If you expand your collection (e.g. you do the Falklands or include things like the 7th Cruiser Sqn – the 'Livebait' Sqn) then you'll have to find another way of doing the bases and they might not match
3) Coordinating payments! One person would have to collect them and pay them to the supplier – much as we may all trust each other it might feel a little uncomfortable (although is this just me being too English?!)

As I say; a long shot and I reckon a bit of a dead duck because of the reasons above, but any ideas, thoughts, alternatives??

Cheers,

Nick

Nick,

The artwork is really simple since it's only white required and the print price is far more than I've paid in the past. I've used John Peck at Precision Decals. His printing quality is exceptionally good. I'lI see if I can recall who printed my last sheet for me. It was also very good and rather cheaper. I must have a Pay Pal record or something.

I presume you have all these ship names as Word file?

Interesting idea, with a bit of careful planning.

My alternative idea was to use a Brother P-Touch labeling machine. I have access to several at work, so I bought myself some white-on-clear tape to test with for exactly this purpose. There are some disadvantages to this system:

• The minimum width for the label media is 6mm, so I'll still have to trim them to fit them on 3mm (1/8") base edges.
  
• The label printers are not cheap ($50-100… I think? Depends on model of printer.)
  
• The cheaper printers require that each label be input by hand.

The advantage is that it suits my tardy muse… I tend to change my mind about label formats a half dozen times in the first few batches of ships in any project. :-)

- Ix

I'd go with a painted white wake, and a black, or navy blue text print to lay over top of that, printed on clear decal film.

You can print those yourself, at home, for just a few dollars.

A second option would be to print the text on the sides, or rear of your ship bases, if they are thick enough, say 1/8" thick, or so.

You could just use a mapping pen with white ink over a dark area of the sea or as Mako writes dark text over the wake.

Mako11's first suggestion looks great in very small scales. Remember the 1/4800 WWII collection by Mike Hammet (KniazSuvorov)?
link
link
The printing is as legible as it gets, flags can be included, you can match the pattern to the pattern of your own sea surface by using a photo as a background image in the print-out, and you can get all the features printed in one click (sea surface, wake, name, class, nationality, and any other info you want to include). Screw-ups and damage repairs are a print job away.

My original cheap standard was to use a calligraphy pen (separate nib/shaft) dipped in white FW ink to hand-scribe directly on a painted, textured base. You can see the results here. Disadvantages are that it's time-consuming, difficult to do legibly or consistently, and hard to do as small as the smaller printed fonts.

- Ix

A bit of experimenting I was doing for the Cold War vessels was to even print flags with an inkjet, and then the vessel type, and a number (for multiples of the same class), printed on plain white paper, in a small font, but in bold black print.

Then, gluing those strips onto the stern base side of the vessels.

I think my bases were only about 2mm – 3mm thick, but it seemed to work well.

Print them out on paper, and then cut the strips to size, glue in place, and then seal with a clearcoat for durability. Make sure to print out a rectangle around your labels, so you can cut them evenly.

Tests seemed to be positive, and that is even cheaper than printing on decal film. You're just paying for a bit of ink, and a sheet of white paper. I glued them on with white glue.

Obviously, you could print on light blue paper, or add more ink of a desired color as a background instead, if desired. It's easiest to read the labels against a white, or light blue background though, and if you paint a stern wake, the white on the top of the bases blends in with the white stern labels rather nicely.

A really cool idea I saw at Navcon: link

The modeler used white lettering as the wake. From a distance (or without glasses…<ahem>) the lettering just looks like a wake, but get close enough and the "wake" becomes legible. I'll never do this myself because I prefer bases to be not only very slightly bigger than the vessels in 1/2400 scale and up, but I thought it was very clever.

- Ix

I follow the same process as Mako11