How it came to be!

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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.