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Dr_GN

MCI Racing Sticker Errors

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hmm, I might as well also add in my 2 cents. Now I have never used MCI, I don't know a whole about them and am also fortunate enough to not need their services. This is because I have my own wide format printer, which wouldn't be too dissimilar from what they are using. I'm also about to install one that does white ink too (I'm very excited about this :D ) which will make the stickers much better as I can now do them on clear vinyl. All my work in in the film industry and I have often had to replicate things, usually packaging and documents. 

So with that in mind these are the limiting factors I see when re-making a sticker set, especially something from the late 90s and earlier.

So firstly, getting the detail. To get an exact copy, they either need an original sticker set and do a scan in high detail. Now anything from the early 90s and earlier was likely done with at least some hand drawing involved. So fonts etc will have little variations in them. This makes matching fonts harder, but not impossible, it can just be time consuming. For the stickers sets I have make myself, I usually end up hand tracing the lettering in most cases, or I use the closest font I can find and adapt that. I can't imagine MCI sell enough of many stickers sets to warrant spending lots of time to make them exact. But if they can do an high resolution scan, then no problem.

Secondly - colour. Even from a high resolution scan, it will need to be colour corrected, which takes time. Scans are done in RGB  colour mode and need to be converted somewhere to CMYK (that's what a print machine will use). As for printing, the machine they are using today won't be the same process as the stickers where originally made. Most wide format machines today are CMYK based. Original stickers where most likely printed with what is called a spot colour. That is an exactly specified colour. Now a CMYK printer will be able to come close, but it will never be exact due to limitations in what the printer (or really the ink) is capable of. Colours like bright oranges  are hard to print. Blues can shift to purple and greys can easily go off hue are a few things that will change, so things like that will happen. Thats not to say you can't do spot colour with sticker printing, its just you'd need the right machine and it cost more. Something that I can't see there being enough demand to justify the cost in setting it up.

Thirdly - media. There are a lot of different sticker media on the market, and all have a different whiteness. Some come with a grey back or blackout lining in the back (so you can cover things) and that will also kill the whiteness. This means the colour will also vary depending on the vinyl sticker used. On a side note, cheaper vinyl tends to be thicker, more expensive vinyl will be thinner.

So overall, I think MCI is probably doing the best they can for the price point they sell at - disclaimer though, I have not seen any of there stickers, but if they are using a modern printer with a good vinyl, they should be pretty decent. I would think given that there is some demand for these stickers, if they are out in colour is to politely let them know and even show a comparison, so hopefully the can correct for a future run. But also bear in mind some colours will always probably be off, and some colours will be off more than others.

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I made a picture of the back side of the vinyl "old" and "new" that MCI uses. The "old" LG  Hausys material is thinner compared the "new" Oracal material. The new material has also a more gloss appearance. So somwhere between last year and now the material changed.

decal back.JPG

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On 4/30/2021 at 12:33 AM, No Slack said:

I made a picture of the back side of the vinyl "old" and "new" that MCI uses. The "old" LG  Hausys material is thinner compared the "new" Oracal material. The new material has also a more gloss appearance. So somwhere between last year and now the material changed.

decal back.JPG

hmm, not too sure about the LG vinyl (its probably a premium cast vinyl), but the Oracal vinyl is just a calendared vinyl. What does this mean? So, vinyl for printing is made in one of two ways, calendared or cast. (This is a very basic description btw :huh:) The calendared process, you get a lump of your vinyl and your roller or squash it out to shape. With cast vinyl, your plastic starts as a liquid and flowed to the shape and allowed to dry. More expensive vinyls (especially for car wrapping) are cast vinyls and cheaper vinyls tend to be calendared. Cast vinyls are typically the thinner type too. You can also heat and stretch cast vinyls more than calendared vinyls.

When calendared vinyls are formed there are more stresses in the final product and they tend to shrink more over time. I have seen very cheap vinyls on a say a 1 metre square print shrink as much as 20 to 30 mm over a year :blink: But that is not to say you can't get good or premium calendared vinyls, you can.

That 651 series sits somewhere in the middle and is a reasonable choice.  It is from a class of vinyls that now tend to be the go to type for general outdoor signage and car stickers, as they balance price and performance. Its rated to 4-6 yrs outdoors (that would be on a vertical surface at 50% sun during the day, with probably Europe type UV exposure levels, in case you where asking! so if you stick it on your car bonnet, you will be disappointed in 2 yrs time :huh:). Even though its calendared, its also what is called "polymeric" so its basically a premium calendared vinyl. The LG would have been a cast vinyl, and you can usually tell by the thickness, cast vinyls tend to be about 2 mil thick, calendared vinyls tend to be about 3 mil thick and these polymeric calendared vinyls tend to be in the middle at about 2.5. 

Its UV and heat that kill a sticker and cause it to fade, so considering an RC car will spend 99% of its lifetime inside, the stickers should last a long time. So while the LG vinyl was probably slightly better, they probably switched to the oracal one as it is a glossier vinyl  (is says so in their marketing brochure!) and would cost less than the LG vinyl and still do the job. You can make a sticker glossier (or more matte) with a clear lamination, which will also protect it agains scratches, but that costs a lot more and makes the stickers a lot thicker.

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The issue is consistency. I've ordered Fox decals three times and each time they've been different.  Colours different, gloss different, thickness different.  First order 9/10, second order 5/10, third order 6/10.  And actually, personally, there comes a point where I just won't use them.  I don't want to labour the point but it's just so frustrating, if my first order had been poor I just wouldn't have ordered again and I'd have stuck to buying genuine ones (despite the cost), but - my first order was great!!!

I now have well over 100€ of decals that I can't use, all ordered on the strength of my first order.  Clearly I now wish I'd put this money into buying genuine ones.

Does anyone know anything about Tamkyo decals, these seem to have appeared recently on eBay..........

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47 minutes ago, Hudson said:

The issue is consistency. I've ordered Fox decals three times and each time they've been different.  Colours different, gloss different, thickness different.  First order 9/10, second order 5/10, third order 6/10.  And actually, personally, there comes a point where I just won't use them.  I don't want to labour the point but it's just so frustrating, if my first order had been poor I just wouldn't have ordered again and I'd have stuck to buying genuine ones (despite the cost), but - my first order was great!!!

I now have well over 100€ of decals that I can't use, all ordered on the strength of my first order.  Clearly I now wish I'd put this money into buying genuine ones.

Does anyone know anything about Tamkyo decals, these seem to have appeared recently on eBay..........

Looks like Tamkyo might be a great alternative based on some of the comments in this thread:

 

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A few years ago Screen Print digital in the UK had a nice selection of RC stickers but I don't think they do Tamiya stickers anymore beacause of the same reason Tamkyo stopped. Maybe send Screen Print Digital a mail to hear what is possible. The Monte Carlo sticker set on the picture is by Screen Print Digital.

Mini 1967 small.JPG

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We love our RC and want our decals to be just like the original.  I’m here to tell you that it is not so easy.  I know this because I design my own decal sheets. Back in 2013, a Chris member on here sent me a high quality scan of the Taisan Starcard decal sheet.  I spent hours cleaning it up in photoshop and sent it for print. The printer came back and said, the file was not usable. It had to be in illustrator and all artwork needed to be in vectors. So a friend Gary took it over from me and redrew all the art work from scratch, head lights, taillights and all. Meanwhile I downloaded the sponsor vectors and resized them. This file is on MCIs site now.  If one of you were to order it and compare it to the originals, you would probably find faults with some of the fonts we used.  It’s not that we didn’t want to use the original fonts, it’s that we had no way of knowing what the original font was called. My illustrator has hundreds of fonts and I’ve gone through them one by one to find the closest. 

For instance, @mongoose1983 post..  do you know which font Tamiya used in 1980s for Go For It?  Without this knowledge you simply select the one that is closest.

As others have stated, Nathaniel at MCI is a one man operation.  If 10 of us submit a request and expect him to make a 1:1 replica of original, it will take him weeks for each submission. 

So if you truly want 100% replica, then you’ll have to do what I do, which is make your own artwork and submit it for print. Even then you won’t achieve 100% accuracy. 

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what we need is some sort of open source repository (much like those free vector logo sites) where people can submit artwork for whole or parts of decal sheets.

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2 minutes ago, yogi-bear said:

what we need is some sort of open source repository (much like those free vector logo sites) where people can submit artwork for whole or parts of decal sheets.

Agree 100%. 

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I have MCI decals on ~20something cars right now, and I've had good luck with Nate. He screens the prints before shipping because once in a while he'll send me 2 prints when I bought 1 because the first print didn't come out perfect and I've always found him to reply to questions, even if it took a day or so.

It's important to remember that many of these aftermarket options are very small operations run in their free time. I'm sure he isn't getting rich doing this and I'd happily trade 10% "perfection" for 90% price compared to buying NOS Tamiya decals. Maybe some of the issue is mis-aligned expectations since nobody can offer 100% perfect replicas.

If someone has a model that must be 'concourse quality' then NOS decals is the way to go, but for me - I'm building for the nostalgia and to have a collection to stare at when I'm sipping a beer - and MCI is good enough for who it's for.

That said: competition is always good as it drives continuous improvement. :)

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On 5/6/2021 at 8:51 AM, Unknown Driver said:

I have MCI decals on ~20something cars right now, and I've had good luck with Nate. He screens the prints before shipping because once in a while he'll send me 2 prints when I bought 1 because the first print didn't come out perfect and I've always found him to reply to questions, even if it took a day or so.

It's important to remember that many of these aftermarket options are very small operations run in their free time. I'm sure he isn't getting rich doing this and I'd happily trade 10% "perfection" for 90% price compared to buying NOS Tamiya decals. Maybe some of the issue is mis-aligned expectations since nobody can offer 100% perfect replicas.

If someone has a model that must be 'concourse quality' then NOS decals is the way to go, but for me - I'm building for the nostalgia and to have a collection to stare at when I'm sipping a beer - and MCI is good enough for who it's for.

That said: competition is always good as it drives continuous improvement. :)

^^^^^^This^^^^^ because when the car start tumbling on the asphalt what does it matter.

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8 hours ago, Exit13 said:

nobody can offer 100% perfect replicas.

The same TamiyaClub offered accurate decals back in the day. If you ever come across one of those old decal sheets you'll see it yourself.

And again, I'm not against MCI in any way. I'm happy with what they offer! I was only pointing out little mistakes, that is all.

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On 5/8/2021 at 4:30 AM, mongoose1983 said:

The same TamiyaClub offered accurate decals back in the day. If you ever come across one of those old decal sheets you'll see it yourself.

And again, I'm not against MCI in any way. I'm happy with what they offer! I was only pointing out little mistakes, that is all.

I was lucky enought to have ordered a batch of the Tamiya/Miles decals just before they were pulled and to this day never used them - waiting for the right project. At the end of the day if  we decent decals we need to buy the originals. They are out there if you look and are prepared to pay the price asked. It took me 10+ years to find Quattro decals at sensible money and I still cant bring myself to use them !!! When ever I see original brat decals I buy them (if priced right - have numerous sets now)

As for runners and my average builds im more than happy with mci, just findished a Frog and while not perfect (white bleed on the netting and Tamiya missing off the roof Frog logo - I guess for copyright reasons) Its fine for me. Only us mad nutters know the differance. The recent mci Hornet decals I used were near perfect and very pleased with them, just some odd sizing issues.

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That's an interesting point you make Zak. Sometimes I PREFER stuff that isn't perfect because I won't go into "gollum-mode" and put the precious on a shelf to collect dust.

We're not talking vintage muscle cars that will be worth big money some day - they're still just plastic cars, so build them, run them, stare at them - do whatever makes you happy :)

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Just had my first lot through today. 
 

Terra Conqueror and Super Manta Ray look great apart from a bit of text missing on the Super. 
 

DF03 MS set not so great. Received 2 sets as there was obviously an issue on the first set but neither are brilliant. 

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1 hour ago, JimmyMcGoose said:

Just had my first lot through today. 
 

Terra Conqueror and Super Manta Ray look great apart from a bit of text missing on the Super. 
 

DF03 MS set not so great. Received 2 sets as there was obviously an issue on the first set but neither are brilliant. 

I had issues with the DF03MS set as well. Some parts of the stickers didn't have any colour. Nathaniel did respond quickly and agreed to send replacements for the ones that had some colour missing but I never got them and he went very quiet. They are usable for runners but as others have mentioned, perhaps not ideal for shelfers.

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On 5/8/2021 at 4:30 AM, mongoose1983 said:

The same TamiyaClub offered accurate decals back in the day. If you ever come across one of those old decal sheets you'll see it yourself.

And again, I'm not against MCI in any way. I'm happy with what they offer! I was only pointing out little mistakes, that is all.

I bought a few sets of decals from tamiyaclub in about 2003/4.  There was a tab at the top of the homepage.  Were these replicas?  I always assumed they were genuine old stock, the quality was excellent.   I still have them on my monster beetle and lunchbox. 

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12 hours ago, davidwj95 said:

I bought a few sets of decals from tamiyaclub in about 2003/4.  There was a tab at the top of the homepage.  Were these replicas?  I always assumed they were genuine old stock, the quality was excellent.   I still have them on my monster beetle and lunchbox. 

As Barry Gibb would say that's both, right AND correct :)

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