How it came to be!
I
have been a modeller for many years my main interest being railways.
Some
12 years ago I went full steam ahead into ‘G’ scale Garden Railways.
My
creation, the South Twerton & Oldfield Park Railway (STOP) now comprises of
some 200’ of track, 3 stations, goods yard & a loco depot.
One
of the biggest problems I soon discovered was sourcing suitable transfers for
MY railway.
All
that I could find were purely general stuff not really suitable for
personalising my railway.
I
discovered a few producers of transfers but these were quickly excluded due
mainly to their reluctance to produce ‘one off’s’ and the prohibitive cost.
I
then experimented with producing Inkjet transfers with limited success.
It
also soon became apparent that it was not truly possible to produce ‘white’
lettering/elements of transfers using an Inkjet.
Whilst
all this was going on and after many hours of brain numbing searches on the
Internet I discovered the Alps MicroDry System of printing.
This
system seemed to have been made especially for making transfers or decals, as
it was an American Company!
These
printers were available worldwide, often re-badged by Companies such as Roland,
Kodak & Oki.
The
system employs waterproof wax based inks deposited on a tape which is enclosed
in a cartridge.
Heated
elements within the print head deposit the ink onto the media.
I
soon discovered that these (expensive) machines were as rare as hen’s teeth but
eventually tracked one down in Holland and hence soon became the proud owner of
an Oki MicroDry printer and a selection of ink cartridges including the elusive
‘white’.
Following
several years of practice, trial and error and much gnashing of teeth I became
quite proficient and confident enough to show off my truly individual transfers.
This
in itself led to much interest and indeed many requests soon followed from
fellow ‘G Scale Society Forum’ members to produce transfers for them.