Hello Gang,  The recent thread about decals got me wondering how am I
ever going to duplicate the plate decal in my Lagonda (made by Jessie
French) stencil piano.  All the usual decal sources mentioned in the
Archives didn't stock it and one custom-made wet or dry transfer decal
would cost a small fortune so I thought that it wouldn't be too difficult
to make my own if I could find some good decal paper.

Decal paper for Ink Jet printers, sold by Avery in office supply
stores, turned out to be thick plastic with a peel-off adhesive, so
I turned to the model builders to see how they do it.  I found
suppliers for decal paper but I wasn't sure they were not selling the
same stuff, since the products for sale are usually listed without
instructions.  I should have known better.

In the current issue of Fine Scale Modeler magazine (November 1999)
is a six-page article about creating custom decals.  It describes how
to make color and black water slide decals in good detail, using your
personal computer, scanner, and an Alps printer with a "Micro-Dry" Ink
jet cartridge and some imaging software.  They also mention how it's
possible to do the color white, gold and silver foil using the Alps
printer.

They don't go in to it very much in that article, but a web site search
of some of the model suppliers listed in the magazine showed that they
sold both ink jet and laser printer decal paper in clear and white.
The laser paper and printer is probably all you need to do a stencil
piano decal but color decals require a dry ink cartridge (sorta like
the old ribbons in a dot matrix printer) for the ink jet printer.  I
don't know if anyone else besides Alps makes them.

Making your own decals isn't for everyone but it is almost within
everyones reach now that many copy stores now rent computers, printers
and some will even do simple imaging tasks.  Good luck and if you do it
before I get around to it (a near certainty) let everyone know how it
worked for you!

In a different direction, with all the technology floating around in
the web, you would think that duplicating a missing etched brass
escutcheon plate should not be that hard, right?  Well, I'll let you
know soon.  It sure looks good so far.

Norman Narmore
Atlanta

 [ The Alps thermal transfer color printers can apply white ink and
 [ metallic gold and silver inks.  See http://www.alpsusa.com/
 [ -- Robbie