Has anyone in the UK used any online printing services to print decals, specifically white decals? I’ve printed my own in the past but they have always been coloured on white or clear decal paper and I don’t fancy shelling out a not so small fortune for a printer that does white?
As Accurate Armour is defunct now I’m coming to the end of my BCF extinguisher decals for my older British vehicles and want to get more printed. I’ve produced the template below and I imagine any printing services can invert the colours to print white on clear paper. I’m also thinking of getting some of the red and green extinguisher decals printed after seeing what can be produced.
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Maximus8425,
Try Black Square Decals.
They have provided me with custom decals for 1/72-scale 3D printed vehicles on several occasions. All they require is artwork and the required dimensions, and they will respond quickly. Cost is minimal (depending on your specific requirements. You can contact them by visiting www.blacksquaredecals.co.uk or by post to Black Square Decals, 14 Darwin Croft, Flitwick, Bedford MK451GL. I think there is a telephone number on their website, so you could give them a call to discuss your needs.
Paul
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That looks like it could be a winner. Their printed white decals look really good, very legible despite being so small. I’ll contact them and get the score on prices etc. thanks very much.
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Keep me in the loop Max as I’m in the same boat for FFE bits of kit 
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I’ll see what the score is when I contact them, might be worth getting a larger sheet printed. If I do I’ll fire some in the post to you. I’ve got some quite good styrene BCF’s from various kits but there’s never decals included on the sheets for them.
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Yeah that’s the problem… decals for things like that adds a lot to the look… Case in point the extinguishers on the 1//16 Universal carrier I’m doing … If they look good, I will throw in an order as well.
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Yes, I have been really impressed by the quality of their decals. Here are two examples. Most of the markings I was able to source from my spares decals collection. However, the ‘MAN’ logo on the truck was custom-made by Black Square Decals, as were the period-correct reg plates for the Ferrets.
Paul
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They look good, what kind of price were those? Just to get an idea as I feel I might be ordering things I find difficult to get. Also what scale is the MAN SV?
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Maximus8425,
I seem to recall that the ‘MAN’ logo was around £8 for a sheet of ten decals (allowing me to repeat the process on any further MAN trucks). I think the Ferret plates were around £5 (front and rear for each vehicle).
The Ferrets and MAN truck are 1/72 scale. I have built the occasional kit in 1/35 scale, but small-scale modelling is my preference.
Are you aware that specific decal sets can be purchased from Kingfisher Miniatures? These tend to cover post-war and modern British subjects (available in a variety of popular scales), and are generally very good.
Paul
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You may use transparent decal sheet and paint a white rectangle on the fire extinguisher, under the decal.
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I’ve used some kingfisher decals in the past Paul, namely the bridge class decals on my Ferret and Saladin. They do some very good slightly obscure decals which tend to be missing from kit decal sheets and as we all know the devil is in the details.
In this instance white under the decal wouldn’t work as at this time I’m looking specifically for the older BCF extinguisher information decals as below.
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Painting a white rectangle to go under the decal only works if the marking is non-white over a white background (i.e., US WWII aircraft national insignia); if the actual marking is white, with a transparent background, as in the image above, that doesn’t work. And painting a white background is only practical if the decal has a simple shape – you get the same problem using white decal paper; cutting close around a complex shape can be a nightmare.
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It might be possible to trick the viewer. Print the inverse of the placard in the base color of your vehicle on white decal film. If the color of the decal exactly matches the color of the model, the result will be the white placard you want.
The issue with this sort of thing is that most printers produce tiny dots of color in an imperfect grid. If the viewer zooms in enough, the dots become visible against the white background. The trick is revealed.
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I’ve done exactly this in the past and it does work to a degree when your kit is a fairly standard colour. BCF extinguishers are gloss deep bronze green in colour though so it likely wouldn’t work and I doubt my printer could render something this small and produce a decent image. I’ve already contacted Black Square Decals with details of my requirements and just waiting for a reply.
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After a little too and fro sending info, dimensions etc. I received the decals yesterday and I’m very happy with them. They cost £10 + £2 p&p for 20 which I thought was reasonable for a custom print. There is a slight glitch on them in that one of the vertical lines is missing but realistically as they are 5 x 3 mm in size you would only notice it because you know. I’ve made Black Square aware of this should anyone order from them in future. My plan is to send the info on the British green and red 2kg dry powder extinguishers and have those printed also. I must admit there was no issues sending the info and the decals arrived the day after ordering them. Just to say I have no affiliation with Black Square Decals at all.
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Look good to me mate and I will be ordering some for all types once he has done them.
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That’s very interesting to know; sounds like an excellent service too.
I end up with a lot of plans scuppered due to the lack of the markings I envisage, so this sounds like a decent fix.
Thanks.
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