Triang Decals

I have been trying for a long time to find the best way to reproduce Triang Floral Decals.  It is impossible to find originals,  Two of my  houses had the flower decals.  So I managed to remove the individual decals using sticky vinyl.

First I scanned the decals I had removed from a Triang house into my laptop.

Using Photoshop I was able to repair the damaged areas and enhance the colours. The next step was the best method of making a decal I could use.

There are many types of paper available, but at the time I was unable to buy a paper that would produce waterslide decals, which was my ultimate aim.

My first effort was to just use a plain white self adhesive paper. It is like the paper you use for making parcel labels. [This may seem an odd paper to use, but was the only paper I could think of, and obtain at the time.] The floral decal pattern was printed on to the paper, and then gave it a coat of varnish. The result was quite good but the printing was not as crisp as I would have liked, the paper being slightly porous. I was one step closer to my waterslide decals, at least I had a template to work on.

Then I tried a self adhesive clear vinyl paper, the results were good, and gave a good clear crisp finish. My main problem was that it took a few attempts to get the printer settings right, and I smudged the image few times. The ink took a while to dry and needed to be sealed with a fixative spray. I was quite happy with the result and it was easy to peel the backing sheet and attach. I did find that after a while the edges of the decal began to curl up, and could have done with a little glue to hold then in place. Overall they were more successful than my previous effort.

I was still not satisfied and really wanted to make proper waterslide decals. I then discovered I could buy water slide decal paper.  There are two types you can buy either laser or ink jet, depending on the printer you have.  You print your design on one side, leave to dry and then coat with two or three layers of spray varnish.

As I had an ink jet printer at home this is the paper I used, it needs to be sealed with a spray varnish. I did have one copy done on a laser printer, and I must admit the quality was much better. Although you do not need to use a spray varnish on laser printing, the decal was flimsy and brittle. [Professional laser printing services do not like printing on this paper as it can damage the printer.]

When the varnish is dry, cut around the design and put it in lukewarm water to separate the decal from the backing sheet.

The decal will slide away from the backing sheet and placed onto the surface.

This method was quite effective, but very time-consuming, also it is difficult to get the layers of varnish correct, if too many layers of varnish was used the decal will not adhere to the surface, too less and it was too fragile. The tall wisteria was difficult as it is quite large for a waterslide decal and had to be very carefully removed from the backing paper.  Overall I was happy that I had achieved my goal to produce a waterslide decal.

I think for the best quality, and ease of applying, the vinyl was the best. The only problem was that to produce these decals for resale, was the consistency of quality and colour. Printers do not seem to hold much ink these days.   So I found a company who would print them for me at a reasonable price, this would give me both quality and colour.

These decals are made to fit the metal fronted Triang Houses No.50 and No. 65.