Got the ladder smoothed out a bit, so it's actually not too bad now. Currently working on the part that's mounted to the roof.
Got the stickers from
Stickerapp. I expected it to be printed in the US, but I'm not actually sure where they're from. I ordered them from the Scandinavian version of the web store (stickerapp.no). I got a shipping notification from USPS with a tracking number after a few days, but the tracking info only shows that a shipping label was made. Turns out that the very same day they actually arrived at my local post office in what seems like a Norwegian cardboard envelope with a different tracking number.
Quality seems very good. They're printed as a single large sticker on clear vinyl like the Tamiya decals. Neither my vernier caliper nor my digital caliper can tell a difference in thickness (0.1mm), but the Tamiya decals are much more stretchy and somehow feels thinner. The clear vinyl in the Tamiya decals are maybe a very tiny bit more clear, but it's on the order of 97% vs 99% transparency. Print quality is very good. Blacks look about 5% lighter than the Tamiya ones. Colors look like I expected. Most importantly, the size is pretty much exactly as ordered.
What I did to make them: I measured the size of the decals on the truck and on photos. I used Illustrator and made the text and numbers with the type tool, imported logos found on the internet, traced them if they weren't in vector format and modified them if they were not accurate (like adding "austria" to the Rosenbauer logo). I made the artboard 20x25 cm and added a thin border around everything to help mark the exact size. When I was happy with everything I used the stickerapp web store, selected a custom 20x25 size, imported the illustrator file and resized it so the border matched the template.
For info, 3 identical sheets cost me about 30 USD shipped.
Quality example: The smaller of the computer thingy is 14mm wide. The smallest visible text near the knife "BRANNTEKNIKK AS" is 0.7mm tall and looks good.
The Rosenbauer logo is from stickerapp. The Tamiya logo on the right is from the Tamiya decal sheet.
Tried cutting away the clear vinyl around the text.
Used a weak masking tape as transfer tape. This is my first time trying this.
Applied to the truck on the second attempt (Had to scrape off 3 letters very carefully and reattach to the tape after I accidentally touched it to the surface. It's almost straight!
Air force bird logo.
