Hi Peter

Mine, a HP Laser jet all in one,  is 600 x 600 and I am quite happy with the print quality - looks as though I bought it in 2011 - I have to say its been very reliable.

Hi Peter,

I've chatted with my friend who has a long experience with using both Ink Jets and Colour Lasers and he has confirmed the various comments here regarding poor longevity of Ink Jet prints and the superiority of Laser printing. He does warn that Laser toner is poorly suited to printing on gloss or high finish paper.

The high capital cost to you of switching to Laser hardware seems like a last resort if you can't find a different solution. Here I'm guessing that your issue is to get kits run off on a one by one basis rather than a whole load of sheets from the scratch-builder's yard. Otherwise a diverse range of resources could just be printed off in bulk for future use.

Have you looked for alternative, custom printing outlets? I'm thinking that the input (files) can be emailed and the output mailed back so why not go looking on line for someone set up to service such needs?. You are not the only person in a remote French locale needing a print job. As someone noted earlier, Euro 400+ and more for ongoing consumables would buy you a lot of contract printing of a standard you could not hope to match at home.

Colin.

You are correct in assuming the bulk of my printing is kits rather than items from the builder's yard Colin.

Naturally I've been giving some thoughts to my next move.   The €400 price tag was for a laser printer with copy/scan options and it's clearly a hefty chunk just so that we can do that - straight colour printers are available at under €300 which is considerably more sensible.

My chain of thought runs something like this :

Why am I considering a laser printer ?   Mainly because ink fades rendering all my efforts and costs assembling these kits virtually wasted.

A secondary consideration is,  I understand laser printing is ultimately cheaper than ink jet printing, in spite of the higher initial capital outlay.

Would an inkjet printed kit last if it was properly fixed and sealed with a quality fixer/sealer ?   Only time would tell and, given my current experience,  I'm not really  sure I want to take that chance ?  Interestingly, I have a few of Doug Dickson's models (doofer of this parish), and some of those have also faded.  I must ask Doug if he sealed them…… 

My latest thinking is to keep my HP all-in-one printer for copying and scanning and buy a cheaper (sub €300) laser printer just for printing………

I currently have 2 on my shortlist - a Brother and an HP - both very similar according to reviews but the Brother offering slightly cheaper print costs.

With this in mind, I searched the price of replacement toner cartridges.  I need to double check but a set of cartridges for the Brother would cost around €100 whereas a set for the HP comes in at €300 !  It could be that the HP ones are much bigger but HP also blocked the use of "generic" cartridges in a recent update so one has to buy the originals.  I did compare originals for both printers so it is "like for like".

I initially favoured the HP but with toner at that price, I think Brother will get the order.

The argument against buying kits rather than using Scalescenes is that a)  I can't paint to save my life, and  b)  Scalescenes kits are so versatile one can turn them into almost anything for the cost of card, glue and time - oh yes, and gallons of printer ink……… :cheers

That is interesting PeterMac.

I have Scalescenes buildings done over 11 years ago using cheap Inkjet printers & have had no fading. All printings sprayed with clear varnish both sides & the buildings are only exposed to fluorescent lights.
 Granted they are getting dusty so I better get the cleaning person activated….