Anasazi37

No, unfortunately. The decal sheet master files represent a substantial investment on my part (time and money), so I can't just give them away. It's the equivalent of asking Captain America (John Moscato) to give you all of his molds for the various resin Macross kits he's designed, for free, so that you can make your own kits. The Hasegawa decals (I have the scans, too) are 1/72 scale and can't simply be resized for use with the Yamato 1/48 valks (or 1/60's, for that matter). Many of the designs require modification so that they will fit properly. I used them as a base for many of my sets, but ended up having to re-render almost every single one so that everything would look right.

ALPS only discontinued operations in the US, which included their repair/replacement program and ink supplies. I researched the MD-5500 option pretty thoroughly before deciding to close up shop. At the time I concluded that it was too expensive, with respect to both time and money--and a bit too risky, since I'd have to deal directly with the manufacturer in Japan (my Japanese is terrible). I was most worried about repair/replacement. ALPS printers break down at the drop of a hat. When that happened in the past, I simply shipped my printer out to ALPS in California and they sent you a refurbished one for $350--generally within a week. I've actually lost track of how many times that happened while printing Macross decals over the years, which is a bit scary. In fact, at one point I had two printers in continuous rotation between my house and the repair facility so that I could minimize down time. I subsidized a lot of the constant repair costs so that I could keep the decals affordable for everyone. The MD-5500 is twice the price, though, plus you'd presumably have to ship the printer back to New Zealand (or Japan) and back any time there is a problem with it. You also burn through a lot of ink when printing decals. When I did the math on all of this, it didn't add up for me. It looks like the ink at alps-supplies.com is about the same price as what I'm used to paying, though, so that's a good thing. As for attempting to scale up the sample pictures of the decal sets I post online for printing, I wouldn't recommend it. Those are reduced resolution, low quality versions designed to show some detail, but not enough so that you can print them yourself (I put a lot of work into those sets). Tango Papa decals makes the best ALPS-friendly paper, hands down. I've pretty much tried them all and suffered accordingly before finding Tango Papa. Vector-based artwork is definitely the way to go if you want clean lines, solid fill, and easily scalable graphics--but it does require specialized software like Illustrator, some drafting skills, and a lot of time (if you want to do it right). I can probably answer some additional questions, but I don't have a lot of time and don't regularly check the MW forums these days.

VERY cool. Makes me wish that I had the time to get back into customization and decal production. Thanks for posting the pic--it made my day.

You can place an order by following the instructions outlined here: http://macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=23136 I've been very busy with work this week, so I haven't been able to respond to order requests submitted this past week until today. Those of you who have placed orders this week, you will be hearing from me shortly.

***Mods, please do not move this post, as it directly affects many of the folks who read threads in this forum. I am trying to get the word out as quickly as possible.*** I'm not officially coming out of retirement to produce decals. More than anything, I'm handling order submissions that will then be sent to another individual for printing. Ordering details can be found in this thread: http://macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=23136 I don't have a lot of time I can dedicate to this, so please help me make it work. More than anything, you'll have to be patient as it could take weeks to ship out orders....

Ordering information has been posted. That took a little longer than expected (sorry). Here's the link: http://macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=23136

Okay, we're ready to go. I am going to post something in the For Sale forum shortly, along with a related post in the Toys forum. PLEASE DO NOT SEND YOUR ORDER IN A PM. IT WILL BE IGNORED. I have set up a new ordering system that will help me more efficiently keep track of everything, as I don't have a whole lot of time to devote to this. To place an order, you will have to send a message to the email account I have set up just for this purpose. How to place an order will be discussed in my For Sale forum thread. Look for that in about a half hour.

I'm still playing message tag with the potential printer. Voice mails, emails, etc. I hope to have more information for you this coming week. Your continued patience is very much appreciated.

I have a lead on another potential printer, thanks to some detective work done by MW member Aryse. I am going to try to get a hold of the guy this week to see if we can come to an agreement. I know his work, and it's good, so I have my hopes up that this will work out. One thing to note, right up front, is that he does printing in his spare time, like I did, so you must be patient when placing an order. I know that 99.999% of you here at MW understood this to be part of the process when I was printing sets and when Nightstalker was helping out (and I am very thankful for your patience and continued support and patronage), but I feel obligated to put this in print for the other 0.001% who have not ordered before and do not know how the system works. ALPS printing facilities do not grow on trees and I no longer have enough free time to fill orders, so we cannot afford to drive away another resource. I will try to post an update later this week. If all goes well, I will start a new thread containing details on how to order, etc. Stay tuned....

PM sent.

Chris, I've definitely been where you are. Folks here at MW are very patient when it comes to printing mishaps like this. There was a period of about two to three months once where I kept going back and forth with my paper supplier at the time (Bel Decal) over very similar quality control issues. They'd send a stack of paper, it would be worthless, I'd send it back, they'd send another worthless stack, and so on. I eventually had to switch paper suppliers. Orders backed up, but in the end I believed that quality was the most important thing and everyone understood. Then there were the times that my ALPS printer broke and had to be sent in for repairs. Even more backlogs. One time I didn't get it back for eight weeks.... I'm not going to point fingers at any MW member who might be anxiously waiting to receive an order. Just please remember that Chris is doing this as a favor to me and to all of you, in his spare time, for almost no money. We both do this as a hobby, not a business. Printing decals using the ALPS method is a very time consuming thing to do and we both fit it in around other obligations (family, work, etc.). Chris was kind enough to step in when I could no longer spare enough time to fill the volume of orders coming in, and I'm glad that we have him around. Chris, it might be too late to suggest this, but I'd be happy to pass along the contact info for my paper supplier. His paper is the best I've ever used and the customer service is excellent.