I'm interested in finding out what typefaces were used for WWII armor and a/c for serial numbers and the like. Are they available if not commonly found??

I've just watched the first 6 episodes of Band of Brothers and am feeling rather inspired...

I've created a couple of fonts for my own use fro Regio Esercito and for Esercito Italiano. For US I bought on-line a generic Stencil font from TLai ( http://www.tlai.com/)). I've now got an original stencil set from WWII and I'm going to do a font out of it, but I've got no idea on when I'll have the time to do it. If you're interested in I can post it somewhere once I'm finished (I don't know if in the site there is an upload/download area).

Scoccia,

That's great!! Thanks for the quick answer!!!

I don't think there is a downloadable area of this site, but I've got DSL and wouldn't mind getting them sent to me!! The question is if the MSN/Armorama site has upload/download capabilities, I think it does!!

In the spirit of scratchbuilding how does one go about making their own typeface??? That is invaluable knowledge for decal making...

No problem to post them, fonts are very small (30/40Kb in the average). For what concerns font construction I know there are several programs (one of those is Fontographer from Macromedia) but I feel more comfy to create them in Corel Draw, that is the same sw I use to produce my own decals to print them with my Aps/Oki printers. In my continuous quest for efficiency I've set up a small company devoted to decal production, mainly on Italian armor subject, and I manage to pay back the hobby. You can reach it at awd.interfree.it...
Ciao
Fabio

What type of printer is that?? Is it just like the Alps that will print white??? I'm trying to do the same thing for the hobby here, not specifically decals, but I'll go to that extreme if I let myself...

Thanks for the info!! There is supposed to be a shareware program, but I haven't found it yet...

Watched the rest of the Band of Brothers, I'm tagged!!!

The printer is a special one that is able to print white and uses solid wax inks. When Alps stopped marketing it, Oki took it over. After a while they stopped to. As far as i know in Europe they are only sold in the Netherlands, but only to the end of the year. You can find it here http://www.hofax.nl/ if you're interested in.
In my view the cons of these printers are:
- quite tricky to use (to get solid - I mean non dithered - colors you have to make multiple passes wit the available colors)
- the only opaque color is white, so you have to undercoat everithing with white ink and to do this you have to print in several steps, so it's better that you use a program supporting layers, like Coreldraw, Illustrator or Canvas. These programs are not shareware, are quite expensive, and it takes a while to get familiar with
- the inks are quite expensive and the white ink finishes very soon
- they are very very delicate
- forget to put a decal sheet in the printer, hit the print buton and get your decals. Usually it tajes more than half an hour to get a letter sheet to be printed in multiple passes

The pros are:

- you can print white
- you can do almost whatever you wish with it once you know how to use it

My suggestion is, if you do not need to print white, to go at Kinko's (or something similar) with your decal paper and your art on a removable media (floppy, CD, etc.) and get them printed for a bit more than a buck.

For what concerns the font software, none of what I mentioned is unfortunately shareware. You can download a trial version that expires usually after 30 days...
Ciao

Thanks for the answers!!

The idea of Kinko's hasn't really hit Sweden yet, so I'm left to use white decal paper and a lot of tedious cutting if the white needs to be taken away...

I haven't tried it yet but I was going to try to spray matt white on clear decal paper with an overcoat of matt varnish before running it through my printer. I've gotten okay results from using my HP Deskjet. I've just got to get the matt varnish coat the proper way to get better results!!!

Another question I was toying with is, isn't decal paper just semi-gloss varnish applied over a watersoluable adhesive????

I'll be careful doing that, due to the fact that inkjet "spits"ink that has to pass through the upper coat of the paper, otherwise it does'n adhere properly. I don't think that a matt paint coat will be ok, but you can always give it a try. Another problem can be to be precise enough to to overlay your white paint layer with the oerlayed inkjet printing...
Another solution can be the following: try to locate some company down there which uses Roland printers to print on vinyl. The technology is the same than Alps/Oki, and they use either wax and resin inks to do the job. You have to use the wax one that are more sensitive to scratches, but compared to the resin ones (that are scratch proof) if you print white you cannot overprint it wit other colors. If you manage to put together a letter/A4 sheet with your artwork, already layered and on a removable media, bring them a sheet of decal paper and go there to print it you should spend only a few bucks.
Decal paper is not the same so NEVER use inkjet decal paper on a Alps/Oki/Roland/Laser printers because you can seriusly damage them, due to the special preparation of the inkjet decal paper that cannot resist to the thermal transfer of the above mentioned printers. Viceversa if you use laser decal paper the inkjet ink won't stick.
For the decal paper question it is not only a coat of clear varnish, is a thicker film with water soluble glue with a special clear coat on top of that. In the industrial process of decal printing, they use standard decal paper, then they lay down the colors and then they apply a last coat of transparent varnish which holds and seals the colors onto the decal paper. This final coat is something like the Microscale's "Liquid decal film"
Ciao

Thanks for your insight on the subject!!

I haven't tried it yet, I was just testing out the theory...

I'm gonna do some searching for a "Kinko's" type store here.

Don't know if out there you've got "Mailboxes Etc". Some of them have laser color printers.
Otherwise if you cannot find a solution, just send me via email the file with your artwork and I'll get it printed out for you here in Italy, then I'll send it back to you via priority mail...
Ciao

Thank you for the offer, I will keep that in mind!

There is a company that deals with making copies of Architechual materials, I thought I would get in contact with them for starters!!

Again many thanks!!

You're welcome Brian
Ciao