About Our Process
What sets MCI apart
Transparency—from material to process
Our goal is to give you useful information and visual tools so you can confidently build the right decal for your project.
Solid Spot-Colour Printing
MCI decals use a solid spot-colour system rather than conventional CMYK printing. Every colour is loaded and printed individually. Additional shades can be made by carefully layering one spot colour over another.
This process produces crisp, vibrant graphics and pigment choices that are difficult to obtain through ordinary four-colour printing. MCI has developed more than 50 selectable colour options for customized decal sheets.
The decals are printed using dry thermal-transfer resin. The colour is transferred as a solid resin rather than sprayed as a typical wet pigment or solvent ink.
Transparent Vinyl & White Backing
Our decals are printed on 2.5 mil transparent, commercial grade PVC vinyl. Printing exclusively on transparent vinyl helps the finished graphic look cleaner and more authentic on the body.
A highly opaque white base is printed beneath the artwork so lighter colours—including yellow and pink—remain visible when applied to a dark surface.
The white backing is intentionally shrunk slightly inside many printed colours. This prevents a white halo around the finished decal. On some light colours, a very fine perimeter without white backing may be visible; this is normal and part of the production design.
What Screens Cannot Show
Colour is strongly affected by light. The temperature and type of lighting around a decal can substantially change its appearance. Phones, tablets and monitors also produce light differently and cannot reproduce every physical printed pigment.
The website preview is therefore a visual planning tool rather than a guarantee of the final printed appearance. HEX, RGB and the closest available Pantone references are provided as additional visual reference points.
Surface colour, gloss, clear vinyl and surrounding paint can all influence how the finished decal is perceived.
Neon, Metallic & Mirror Colours
Fluorescent pigments can be printed alone or layered with other colours to create additional neon options. Their intensity is especially difficult to display on a screen, so the online swatch cannot fully represent the printed result.
Neon pigments are also more sensitive to prolonged sunlight than conventional colours. They are suitable for outdoor RC use, but are not intended for continuous UV exposure or long-term outdoor storage.
Metallic gold and silver have a genuine metallic shimmer. Mirror gold and silver are more reflective and closer to a mirror appearance. Neither shimmer nor reflectivity can be represented accurately online, so customers should pay attention to the finish name when selecting these options.
Tested Layouts & Custom Colour Changes
The original colour layouts shown on the website have been tested and refined for the best possible production result. Customers are free to change them. Similar substitutions—such as yellow to light yellow or red to dark red—usually remain close to the tested behaviour.
More dramatic substitutions can create interactions that have not been tested in that exact layered combination. Black-to-white, red-to-dark-blue or yellow-to-pink changes can affect adjoining colours, base layers or overcoat layers.
Every customized sheet is reviewed before production, but a highly customized combination may behave differently from the original layout.
Layering, Overlap & Edge Effects
Some adjoining graphics intentionally overlap during production so tiny registration differences do not leave an empty gap. A light-green-to-dark-green transition, for example, may contain overlapping printed areas.
If those colours are changed independently, the overlap may create a visible blended edge. This is particularly noticeable when a dark colour is changed to a light colour, or vice versa. These physical layered interactions may not appear in the website preview.
Repeated layers count as separate print passes even when the same colour name appears more than once in a production recipe.
Crop, Rescale & Measure
The crop tool lets customers purchase only the portion of a sheet they need—such as headlights and tail lights—or select part of a larger layout. A cropped selection can also be recoloured and rescaled.
The measurement tool lets customers check individual graphics before ordering, while fine scale controls allow precise adjustments for custom and one-off builds.
Each new crop requires setup and production review. Once that exact crop is prepared, duplicate copies cost less. The website updates the price as the crop, scale, colours and quantity change so the cost is visible before ordering.
Scale & Fitment
Every standard sheet is designed around a specific RC model, and its original size reflects the intended fit for that body. The same principle applies to window masks. Products may be resized for custom projects, but changing the scale does not guarantee fitment on another body.
RC scale labels are not universal. One manufacturer’s 1/10 body may differ substantially from another manufacturer’s 1/10 body, and some models use unusual scale descriptions.
For the exact model named in the product, the standard size is the intended fit. For custom or cross-manufacturer use, customers should measure the required area and compare key graphics with the on-screen measurement tool.
Why Pricing Changes
Pricing is dynamic because different sizes, materials, colours and production choices require different amounts of setup, material and machine time. The website recalculates the price while the customer customizes the product.
Each spot colour is printed in a separate, precisely aligned pass. A sheet with 12 unique colours may require 12 individual passes through the machine. More unique colours therefore mean more production time and a higher price. Consolidating less-important colours can reduce the number of passes and lower the cost.
Fluorescent pigments cost more and are more demanding to print. Black and white changes may also require additional preparation because those colours are frequently used as structural base or protective layers. These costs are built into the displayed customization price.
Standard Finish & Durability
Normally printed decals receive a durable, high-gloss clear resin overcoat. Unlike a conventional laminated decal, this does not add a separate adhesive-backed laminate film. The finished decal remains thinner and more flexible when wrapping around small RC-body edges and contours.
The finished decals are designed for high wear and can tolerate everyday handling, many mild cleaning products and alcohols. Stronger chemicals and fuels—including lacquer thinner, gasoline and nitro fuel—can damage an externally applied decal.
A customer may apply a compatible clear coating after installation for additional protection or a different appearance. For example, a customer-applied matte clear can create a matte finish. MCI does not apply this optional final clear coat.
Reverse Printing for Maximum Protection
For nitro- or gasoline-powered RC cars, or whenever the most protection is desired, reverse printing places the decal inside a clear polycarbonate body before painting.
The graphic is printed in reverse so it reads correctly through the body. The polycarbonate then protects it from external wear, impact and fuel.
This option requires careful planning because the graphics must be positioned before the body is painted. After paint is applied, repositioning is no longer practical.
Application & Customer Trimming
Decals can be applied directly or, where appropriate, with a soap-and-water application method. Not every sheet is currently die cut.
Many sheets are printed on clear vinyl with white backing beneath the artwork and are trimmed by the customer before installation. Because the carrier is transparent, a carefully trimmed edge becomes unobtrusive on the body.
This preparation style will be familiar to hobbyists who used vintage RC decal sheets from the 1980s and early 1990s.
Every Sheet Is Redrawn as Vector Artwork
Every reproduced decal sheet is redrawn by hand—line by line and curve by curve—in vector format. Vector artwork can be resized without pixelation and allows individual spot colours to be selected and changed.
Creating accurate production-ready artwork takes considerable time. A reproduction request can be added to the development list, but it is not an instant automatic conversion.
The care taken during redrawing is what makes later scaling, recolouring and production possible.
Requesting a Reproduction
Customers can request a unique or vintage sheet through their profile and upload scans of the original artwork. Scans between 300 and 600 DPI are recommended for the best usable detail.
Large sheets may be scanned in several overlapping sections and do not need to fit into one scan. Clear overlap helps the separate images be aligned when the artwork is reconstructed.
Source material varies in quality, so better scans generally provide a stronger starting point for an accurate redraw.
Spot an Issue? Please Tell Us
With a large and growing catalogue of vintage RC products, occasional errors are possible. Old scans can also be misleading because faded or shifted colours may look different from the original physical sheet.
Customers can report an incorrect colour, missing detail or other problem from the product page or their customer profile. Knowledge from the vintage RC community helps fill gaps in the historical source material.
Verified corrections improve the catalogue for everyone.
Order Status, Quality Checks & Communication
MCI Racing is a small operation. Every order is prepared by hand, checked and quality reviewed. That hands-on attention takes time, and the customer profile provides progress information and an approximate shipping date while the order is being processed.
If something is not right, please contact us through the website or by email; phone contact is also available after purchase. We want the opportunity to understand the issue and work toward a practical solution.
Clear, respectful communication helps unusual custom orders and any problems get resolved efficiently.