Decals for G scale

[Train 284]

Does anyone know where I can buy cheap G scale decals? I am on a 14 year olds budget and some of the companies who make them are way out of my budget because they have to be custom made. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

See if you can find some ink jet transfer paper and experiment with that.
I've used it before and although it takes a while to get used to the colours (they don't always come out the way you think! ) it can work quite well.

[Kiwi Down Under]

Train 284
All depends what you want the decals for. Where I am its virtually impossible to get anything in that scale so I go through the poster web sites and print out the posters etc in the right scale then laminate them.
then cut them out. Provided you leave a bit of clear plastic around the edges water cant get in then you can stick them to what you want.
No more nails or such adhesive works well, is water resistant enough and if you dont want the shiny decals then coat with water based matt clear varnish.
It has limitations but for a few $ you can have pages and pages of signs, decals etc.
Tony

[Anonymous]

I always thought Decals were a waist of time but now I have decided i wi***o label all my loco's with a green decal depicting the name of my railway. "Kawana Island Tropical Railway" hence the green colour.

Doreen got a quote of A$175.00 for an unstipulated quantity but I would only need about 20 ever, so thats about A49.00 per decal and in her accountants manner she said we could not justify the cost, hmm . What sort of justification do you need.

Rgds ian

[kstrong]

Cheap decals:

Troy suggests the ink-jet decals, which is the obvious place to start. I've not used them, but I've heard of people getting decent results. Drawbacks - the inability to do white, unless you print onto white decal paper. (So, something like white lettering will be very problematic)

Other alternatives:
If you want lettering and striping, find a local art supply store and look for dry-transfer lettering and vinyl line tape. (You can also look for vinyl lettering, too.) The lettering will most likely only come in a few colors, probably white, black, and perhaps red, and the number of fonts may be limited, but at least it's not as expensive as getting a sheet custom produced. The striping should be available in a number of widths from 1/32" (perhaps even 1/64") to 1/4" or even 1/2". A good art supply store will also have a rainbow of colors available, including gold. Failing that, head over to your local R/C hobby shop and look for striping used for R/C car and airplane decorations. They come in a roll with varying widths of striping all on the same roll, in a variety of colors.

Not-so-common alternatives:
"P-Touch" labels. You can get tape with a variety of combinations of background colors (including clear) and ink (including white and gold). Just type out what you want the label to say, and hit "print." Then just stick the label on the side of the car, and voila! You can load various fonts onto these printers, and install label cartridges of varying widths to meet your needs. The black labels with gold or white lettering would be great for lettering locomotive tenders. Clear with white lettering would work well for freight car sides. I'm not sure what the label writers cost. I've seen simple ones for around $20 at Wally-World. There's a good chance that one of your parents has one at work somewhere, so ask them to check. All you'd need to do is get the appropriate ribbon cartridge, and I don't think their employers would have much trouble with you running off a few labels.

Clear label paper for ink-jet printers:
If you want to do custom artwork, not just lettering, then this may be another good alternative. Get some clear adhesive label "paper" from Staples, and print your artwork out onto that. Then you need only peel and stick. You may want to cut around the shape of the artwork, but that's not any big deal. You'd have to do that with decals and most other forms of lettering anyway. Here again, white is difficult, but you can also print on white labels and stick them in place. Yeah, they're not quite as thin as decals, but from 10' away, you won't be able to tell. That, and they're pretty friggin' cheap! A quick coat of sealer, and you're off and running. You'll want to look for entire sheets of clear adhesive, not the sheets cut for individual labels. If you can't find the "uncut" sheets, go for the largest label size they have available, so you don't have to piece together your artwork from 5 tiny return-address label sized pieces.

Later,

K

[GP-9_Man11786]

If you like Penn Central, you can use white pinstripe tape for their "PC" logo.

[Anonymous]

Very interesting, what is Penn Central is this a pig stye or similar?

Rgds Ian

[Kiwi Down Under]

Good one Ian
A lot dont seem to appreciate that there is other countries on this planet. Perhaps its because they live in such a cold place, contaminated environment , not like us downunder.
Tony.

[Dick Friedman]

Decals come in lots of sizes for lots of purposes. Don't go looking for "G scale" decals. Decide you need letters half and inch, or three quarters, or 100 cm, or whatever. Then look in an art supply store or a hobby shop. Try looking is stores that feature flying models, their scales are large and so are their decals.