How Not To Make Decals

I've been working on this for days now and I'm hoping I will finally get it right. As I type this I'm creating the third stencil. The PhotoEZ film is being exposed to the icandescent light at the workbench. It should be ready for developing in about fifteen minutes. I think I have the exposure procedure down pat. We shall see.

The first step in the process is creating a drawing. This can get pretty involved. I wanted to put as much in that drawing as I could, so the stencil is crowded.. The sheets I have are only 4x5 inches. You would think filling one would be a cake walk. It's not. Finding stuff to fill up the drawing takes quite a while. Once you find some info, like the lettering you want, you may want to research things like the class and number series of the car you are going to decal. It's pretty easy to make different numbers for each car. The finished drawing is a composite of five others...

Composite Drawing

The drawing is sized to fit an 8.5" x 11.5" transparency. That is room enough for four sets of decals each on its own 4"x5" sheet. You can see that I packed as many different road names as I could. All of them are railroads that I'll be modeling. I also threw in few others from other model railroads and the Owertown trolley.

Then I printed the entire drawing on a single transparency. Wanted to take advantage of all that real estate at one time. It doesn't make sense to me that I should print one 4"x5" image and waste three quarters of a rather costly piece of  acetate. I didn't intend to make multiple stencils at one time but if need be I could "burn" four stencils at once.

Anyhow, the transparency came out great. As I mentioned before, the inkjet printer I use has awesome resolution. It is possible to read the smallest lettering. It would be really nice if the finished product comes out the same way. By the way, it helps if you feed the transparency into the printer properly. If not you waste ink on the paper protector sheet...

"Misprint"

 I expose the PhotoEZ by laying the transparency over it and then pinning both of them down with a piece of clear acylic. The light I use is just 40 watt (I think) bulb in the magnifier over the worktop. I let it sit for 15 minutes and find something else to do (like this blog)...

"Burning" The Stencil

The part of the drawing I'm using first is the upper left quadrant. It has all kinds of stuff on it. I've included some of the motive power, a variety of cabeese, the trolley and a few boxcar decals for foreign road names. You may recognize some of them... 

Upper Left Quadrant

I'm not sure if some of the thinner linework will actually appear on the actual decal. I've been having trouble with that part of the process...

Fine Lines

Sometimes the artwork comes out "gloppy", sometimes too faint or not at all. I've tried acyllic paint sprayed through an airbrush and actuall silk screen "ink" (seems like thick paint to me).

I know it's me. I don't have the knack of it yet...

Upper Left Corner Of Stencil

Decal Air Brushed

Decal Inked

Part of the issue is the stencil. I've beat it up quite a bit. Even so, under magnification the stencil is nowhere near the resolution of the original printout... 

Detail Of Stencil

 You can also see the evidence of the actual screen mesh on some of the decal. This sample was not made from a fresh stencil. By this time the poor thing has been scrubbed clean several times...

Mesh Marks

Soooo...The new stencil was exposed for 15 minutes. I looked at and it appeared to be blank. I guess I did something wrong. Put it under the light for another 15 minutes...Here is where I issue a word of warning. On the first stencil I thought I could see the artwork. That was a fluke. More than likely the stencil will appear totally blank. After developing the artwork will be VERY obvious. By putting it back under the light I overexposed it...I cleverly managed to make the same mistake with two different sheets of PhotoEZ. Those were the last two 4"x5" I had. Fortunately for me Circuit Bridge slipped two extra small samples in the bag. I was able to create a new usable stencil. There is a silver lining...I can experiment with paint and ink to my hearts content...

Improperly Exposed

Another thing to watch is handling the stencil before it develops. I got finger prints on the first two. Now I make a little handle from the Tamiya masking tape I use. This way I can lift and manuever the sheet without fingering it.. Make sure it's on the mesh side of the template...

Masking Tape Handle

Once the stencil has been exposed place it a shallow pan of water to develop the image. It's like that step in developing photos from film (if anybody remembers film). There are some documents out there that suggest scrubbing the stencil. WAIT until the stencil is developed. In fact don't scrub it at all. I know this because I scrubbed the first sheet. I striipped away most of the emulsion and was left with empty mesh. Lift it out of the water and rinse it under cold water. If there is any excess emulsion rub gently with your fingers while rinsing. Once I rinse it off I lay it down between two paper towels and let it dry... 

Finished (Sort Of)

After examining this last example in camera images I can see that there are places that may have had excess emulsion. Should have taken more time cleaning off the film...

Residue

Well, at least I have one more piece of PhotoEZ. Might as well try again.

If anyone out there wants to take their own shot at this, You can buy four 4"x5" sheets of PhotoEZ for about $10 from Circuit Bridge. Gives you something to experiment on without draining your bank account.

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad