Weekend Update 7/8/18

[unittrain]

I took a day of leave today so it's kinda still my weekend...

I was busy!  First, I received my Monster Modelworks kits for the Placerville, Colorado garage and store.  I spent quite a bit of time detailing the stone finish (and not 100% satisfied yet).  Also busted out a quick Walthers kit that looked pretty close to the Placerville post office.  Photo printed curtains (from LARC) and a photo tarpaper roof made it a quick go.  I'm arranging Placerville to be a little different than the prototype so it'll fit my space.  It'll also put the Monster structures right up front where they can be seen.



On the subject of Placerville I got that beautiful laser kit from Narrow Gauge Colorado for the Placerville depot.  It wasn't cheap but holy crap, it's amazingly detailed and well-engineered.



Also, as much as I want to start running trains, I first have to lay track, which means I have to build trestles.  So the rest of my weekend was devoted to scratchbuilding RGS Bridge 45A, the long Ophir Loop bridge.  I made it roughly the same height as the prototype but compressed in length.  It ends up looking taller than it should, but I kinda like it that way!



The finished product:



Cain't wait to handlay individual ties on that deck!   

Top notch modeling here too I love that trestle    excellent work.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

A few weeks ago I decalled a pair of B&M RDCs. This weekend I made a photo-plank so that I can take better photographs of my models. Everything was going great until I looked at the pictures of my computer. The printing of the decals is quite obvious and rather distracting. Back to the drawing board.

Are these Alps decals? I have had success with using a color laser printer. The blue toner is darker than the Alps blue and wouldn't have the banding issues you have.

[peteski]

Are these Alps decals? I have had success with using a color laser printer. The blue toner is darker than the Alps blue and wouldn't have the banding issues you have.

Alps "banding" is a totally different artifact. This effect is halftoning.
But your solution is valid.  Laser printers have finer halftone screen frequency.  But ink jet printers are even better since they use stochastic halftones with randomly scattered dots.
Like you said, since these decals are applied over white surface, they can be printed using a printer which does not lay down a layer of white undercoat. So any Laser or ink jet would work just fine.