review Fantasy Printshop No Carrier Film Decals

[Iain]

No Carrier Film Decals?

 

Fantasy Printshop have a reputation for producing some of the best decals in the business, often doing the printing for other decal brands. A short while ago Ray, the man behind Fantasy Printshop, announced they were going to be producing some decals that were free of the traditional carrier film needed to hold individual designs together - and we were keen to take a look!

 

Ray has kindly sent us a selection of RAF letters and numbers suitable for 1:32 subjects so that we could take a look - and, most importantly, try them out.

 

 

An interesting development IMHO.

 

Iain

[nmayhew]

Interesting, and an interesting choice of decal 

 

part of me thinks where on earth have these been all these years?  Have FPS made some grail like discovery or breakthrough?

 

the other part wonders whether this technology is slightly wasted on 1/32 code letters when - no matter how good they are - painted masked letters will look better?

 

FPS should be piling in to stencils on - dare i say it because i don’t really build them - modern jets with their gazillion little warnings of this and that

 

i am interested if this technology extends to complicated multi colour decals which may make nose art which can’t really be masked less ‘traumatic’ re visible carrier film

 

Nick

[chrish]

So, I’m thinking the code letters (or characters) will all be individual items, each one needing to be straight and level to the one placed beside it?…not impossible but, for me I think likely quite difficult. 

[Iain]

Yes, you'll need to align by eye, or with suitable marking out.

 

But that's needed anyway of you are making up serials/codes from more traditional decals?

 

Iain

[MikeC]

39 minutes ago, nmayhew said:

the other part wonders whether this technology is slightly wasted on 1/32 code letters when - no matter how good they are - painted masked letters will look better?

 

Indeed so, and easier to align as you can draw reference marks on the masks.

 

40 minutes ago, nmayhew said:

i am interested if this technology extends to complicated multi colour decals which may make nose art which can’t really be masked less ‘traumatic’ re visible carrier film

 

Again yes.

[Iain]

They're not going to be everyone's cup of darjeeling, but for some applications, for some modellers, these will be useful IMHO.

 

Iain

[D.B. Andrus]

Masking carries its own set of problems as well, so I can see a very handy place for this type of decal. Looking forward to seeing your review, Iain.

 

Cheers,

Damian

[adameliclem]

Thanks, Iain, this is a really promising development. The advantages for decalling metal finishes are clear. It would also be a big help to have no carrier film to chase when applying small decals to (or within) details like instrument bezels, screens, etc.

 

Cool stuff. Thanks for the review.

 

Adam

[MikeC]

5 hours ago, Iain said:

They're not going to be everyone's cup of darjeeling, but for some applications, for some modellers, these will be useful IMHO.

 

Iain

Sorry  Iain,  didn't intend to detract from the review, and I know masking and painting markings isn't for everybody.  Hoping this will be a success and the range expands, even as far as the aforementioned nose art.

Edited July 10, 2022 by MikeC

[dennismcc]

Great developement, anything to make decals easier to use sounds good to me.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[airscale]

I have been testing these with Ray, so have some observations too...

 

I made up a sheet for my P40 cockpit

 

 

and close ups..

 

 

 

in terms of observations:

 

1. It means he can do one offs really easily - so with normal silk screen decals his minimum order is 25 x A4 sheets, with this subject to having usable layered vector artwork he can just run off a copy just like that so it adds versatility

 

2. There is a slight graininess to the decal, but even for the super fine stuff he does for me it works, it also curls more than a usual decal so needs a little more care in use

 

3. It cannot be used for stencils, so if you see above there are some elements that are just white text - these won't work because as soon as it hits water, all the individual characters will seperate as there is no carrier film holding them together

 

4. i would say for superfine work like the instrument stuff I use it for, the resolution is slightly less than silk screen (which goes down to 0.06mm line definition)

 

It is however, a very useful addition to his capability, as I say, particularly for one offs, it's just a shame that the one area where you don't want carrier film like stencils, is the one area it can't cope with

 

Peter

[Iain]

Thanks for your input on this Peter - really useful!

 

Iain

[Woody V]

20 hours ago, nmayhew said:

FPS should be piling in to stencils on - dare i say it because i don’t really build them - modern jets with their gazillion little warnings of this and that

 

Since there is no clear film to hold all the lettering together, it isn't practical.

[Woody V]

We've been selling our *NCF Decals to armor modelers for years and based on the feedback and sales volume they seem well received. However, there are limitations to this technology. Personally, I don't know why people have such a hard time with decals... well, unless you're doing a NMF. 

*No Clear Film.

[adameliclem]

Besides NMF, very dark or all-black finishes can be really unforgiving to carrier film. Hinomaru decals over IJN dark green finishes are good examples, not to mention the livery on black-bellied Lancs.