Home made carbon fiber stickers

I have just bought one of the testors decal makers

'Just wondering if its possible to print my own carbon decals??

or will the quality suffer. I am having trouble finding the pattern i want, so i was wondering if the decal maker would do the trick?

Thanks guys for any help!

Have you tried searching for a photo or something? Or got a decal you can scan?

Where did you buy this set? I would like to try it out sometime.

I have no experience with this particular decal kit. However, for a while now, I use generic decal paper and my PC/printer.

I do not see why you can't use it for CF patterns. I have used it successfully for seat patterns. Depending on your printer, you might want to try clear and white decal paper to see which one provides the better results.

One word of caution, if you are using an inkjet printer. The ink dissolves in water! In my instructions it said to spray the whole sheet after printing with Krylon Clearcoat. This works well, if you do large decals. For small ones or if you need to cut right to the edge of your pattern, the water will still bleed through the cut into the ink. I have not completely solved this issue but spraying the decal after cutting it out improves it.

Also, because of the additional layers of clearcoat, my home-made decals are not as flexible and thin as the "professional" ones. They do not work as well with Micro-set and Sol.

If you have a laser printer, most of these issues should not be a problem.

Is the decal paper safe to use under color laser printer? or it will jam? any particular setting that I have to careful about?

There are two different kinds; one for Laser Printer, one for Inkjet. I don't think they are interchangeable.

I've tired the inkjet ones. My printer isn't of that high quality, but it worked for what I needed. Someone on either this forum, or Scale Auto had made his own CF decals. To some extent. He printed out just like a whole sheet of black lines on the clear sheet, and painted what parts he needed, in gunmetal. It seemed to do the trick.

Sure, theoretically it is possible- but you're probably making things four times harder on yourself than just using store bought CF decals. If you are absolutely sure that you can print the pattern you want succesfully, and you are sure that the decal film you're printing on will perform well, and you're sure that the ink won't run, then it might be worth a try. But unless you know that you already have the skills to print professional quality decals, you're not going to be as happy with homemade CF decals as with store bought. And the learning process will be much more expensive than just buying them....

Thanks for the reply guys!

I bought the kit from the hobby shop for $20AU, It is a Testors kit that comes with a cd program for the decals 2 sheets of the special paper needed to print and a can of decal bonder to spray the decal with.

I guess i will just try it and if it works then good , if not then i'll just buy some!

The reason i want to try and print some is because i'm trying to replicate the carbon enzo that is on this forum, and in Australia the carbon sheets are not easy to find and when i can there not cheap. More that likely i will need 3 sheets( mistakes and so forth )

The kit was only $20AU, believe it or not there is a bloke in the USA on ebay trying to sell this very same kit for US$60 with a RRP of just $599!! what a dick!