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Making Custom Decals

Tools
For tools, I need a way to create my designs and a way to print them. This amounts to a computer and two different computer printers. One is a Hewlet Packard 4P laser printer with 600 DPI resolution. The other is an ALPS MD-5000 color printer with up to 2400 DPI resolution. The laser printer is an effective way to create decals when the only color needed is black. The ALPS printer comes into play when creating full-color decals.

I avoid ink jet printers for printing decals. Without getting into very specific types of inks and printing processes, most ink jet printers use an ink that runs in water. This is not a good thing when the end result of my hard work is intended to go swimming. And, even if I used an ink jet printer with ink that does not run in water, it will not print cleanly on the decal film because the ink is designed to soak into the paper during printing. It is not able to soak in on decal film and, therefore, has a tendency to run before it dries. The ALPS printer uses a different printing method that has none of these problems, but does have a few of its own that I will explain in the last section of this posting.

Since you are reading this posting, you obviously have access to a computer and probably have access to a computer printer. But, as a "low-tech" alternative, you can make due with pen, paper, and a photocopier. I actually did the pen and paper thing for a couple years before I had access to a computer, and it does work. I will not be elaborating any more on the "low-tech" process in this posting, though.