Thanks. The grain filler is Bartley Paste Wood Filler, "Dark." I got it at a woodworking store some years ago. I recently read about coloring and using plaster of paris, which sounds interesting and fast drying. The stuff I used has to dry overnight.
The powder is called Stamp Stuff embossing powder, I used "Pirate Gold" color. Got it at Michael's crafts store. The decal paper came from
http://www.supercaldecals.com/
I ordered the clear. For inkjet printers only. I'd recommend a new black cartridge if yours is kinda iffy.
The way I work it to conserve the paper is to come up with my designs by trying various fonts, etc. Then I print out in black on a piece of plain paper. Then I cut out a piece of the decal paper and carefully tape it all around over the part of the plain paper previously printed. Rub the paper all over with a dryer sheet to cut down static. Then feed it back into the printer so that it will print onto the decal paper this time. Set the printer for best quality print and for photo paper. When it comes out immediately pour the powder over it. Let sit for fifteen seconds. Pour powder off and back into the bottle. A bottle of this stuff will last a long time. Use a small soft brush and brush off the remaining powder from the decal or else you'll have little gold speckles on your decal.
Now you heat the powder. Some use a heat gun. I used the toaster oven set to broil, heat from above. Watch carefully and the gold will appear. There is some happy medium between too much and too little time in the heat. I had to experiment with a number of decals to arrive at my best results. They need to have a thin spritz of lacquer before cutting them out to make them more manageable.
I already described how to apply them. I had to experiment there, also, to get best results. If you PM me some words you want and font (I used Arial Western 16 point on the ones for this set) and font size, I'll be glad to make you some N/C since I'm all set up to do it with more material than I'll probably ever use. That goes for anybody else needing to finish a set.
I'm going to be in Texas for about ten days so can't get back on this radio or anything until after that. Coming down the home stretch on it, though, I hope.
PS: I can even make decals of brand logos if there's something on the web to go by.