Wonder if anyone has tips for ensuring that a word or name spelled with individual decal letters and numerals is in a straight line on a surface. So far, the only instance where I've used individual characters is with the relatively large initials of a railroad. Those three (in this case) letters are spread across most of the side of a caboose, so lining them was fairly easy by just eyeballing them. With a long word or name, however, straightness (or lack thereof) is more apparent. A line drawn on the surface first would seem like a logical guide, but it would be difficult to draw on the glossy surface required for decals and, even if a line could be drawn it would be difficult to remove without damaging the decal film.
I have used the sticky edge of a Post-It® note and I place it about 1/8" or so below the line I'm aiming for. Don't forget some rounded letters descend below the primary lettering base line so you may have to account for that.
Good Luck, Ed
I have a fairly lengthy write-up about decaling, but will only use a couple of excerpts from it, as I don't want to put the audience to sleep.
"Use references on the model (rivet lines, panel lines, doors, ladders, and other details) as guides to position the lettering correctly and level. Where those details aren't available, I like to cut strips of masking tape as guidelines, and when lettering with individual letters or numerals, often use a pencil to denote, on the tape, the beginning and end of each word, so that the spacing is correct. Likewise, individual letter spacing is not usually uniform, but rather depends on the particular letters and their sequence within the words. Google "kerning" for more info. "
For such lettering, I cut a strip of masking tape to a suitable length and width, then use dividers to place it level at the required height on the car's side....
After the decals (or dry transfers) are in place, I apply some setting solution. On a car with "wood" siding, once it's dry, I use a sharp blade to slit the lettering along the grooves between the boards, then apply more setting solution, repeating the process as necessary until the lettering appears to be painted-on...
I'd guess that about 90% of my freight cars have been lettered in this manner, using both decals and dry transfers...
I use similar techniques for pretty-well all of my passenger cars, but they're done with dry transfer alphabet sets......and it works equally well on locomotives. This one was done with decals from an alphabet set...
If anybody's interested in the long version of decaling tips, just ask and I'll add it to this thread in a separate post.
Wayne
I use templates that are spaced up from the side of the freight car by a 0.040" shim. I clamp these to the freight car, and use them as a guide. The decal film goes under the visible edge, but does not touch the spacer.
The photos show an arched lettering template, but the straight templates are similar.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I'll never have the specialized dexterity to do this with decals, but something I found a very good idea in pasteup -- including when making headlines with Letraset, which was a form of dry-transfer lettering -- is to sight obliquely, so the line of lettering is heavily foreshortened, when checking the vertical alignment. Then do the rotation, kerning adjustment, etc on the letter and check its vertical alignment obliquely again before 'committing' to fix it down.
Staybolt: Are you lettering a ficticious roadname?
If so, another nifty trick is to just add a horizontal stripe, and line up all the lettering to that. This car was one letter at a time.
The only freight car I have with unaligned lettering was actually done with custome decals, and the decal "sagged" while being set in place. Oops.
Look at the word RAILWAY on this boxcar. It happens.
Thanks to all for your suggestions. They would work in a lot of cases. In the particular project that prompted my post, though, I have the curved, horizontal surface of a vertical oil product storage tank (part of a trackside oil product business) as the place where I want to identify the contents, e.g. "HEATING OIL". That surface already has rows of two-dimensional rivet decals at the seams of the plates of the tank that I recently applied. The font size I want to use for the letters is such that the name of the product will overlap at least one vertical rivet decal row. I think that would argue against using any sort of alignment device with a sticky backing (e.g. tape) which would lift the rivet decal line when it was removed. Someone's idea of an above-surface template would work to protect the rivet lines, but I think it would be difficult to make a rigid template that would conform to the curve of the tank surface.
Yes, I should have applied the product name letter decals first....ahhh, hindsight!
Do have any of the rivets in a horizontal line? Maybe use that to line up the letters, or, if using the sticky note, or tape, don't put it on the rivet decals. Skip that one spot. Use the eyes.
Mike.
My You Tube
staybolt....The font size I want to use for the letters is such that the name of the product will overlap at least one vertical rivet decal row. I think that would argue against using any sort of alignment device with a sticky backing (e.g. tape) which would lift the rivet decal line when it was removed.
Depending on the planned location of the lettering, you may be able to use tape to hang a piece of paper like a curtain around the tank, then use the bottom edge of the paper as the guideline. The tape holding the paper wouldn't need to be one continuous strip, but could be cut into segments which would allow it to skip the area(s) where there are vertical rivet strips. If the paper is long enough to extend past the vertical rivets beyond the start- and finish-points of the actual lettering, a small piece of tape at each edge would keep the paper tight against the tank. Here's a quick mock-up which should be easier to understand...
The rivets shown were embossed with a pounce wheel, but illustrate your mention of vertical rivet decals.
This is a great thread.
doctorwayne - I have admired your excellent work for a long time and would like to read the long version of your decaling tips. Would you please post them or direct me to where I might find them? Thanks.
DEW
Wayne,
Your "curtain" idea is a good one....thanks. Snuggling letters against a horizontal rivet line would work, but I'd rather have product name in clear area of tank plate(s). Your idea would work for that.
Your 3-dimensional rivet lines look great! Hadn't heard of a pounce wheel until you mentioned it. I found other forum "rivet posts" afterward. One said he runs wheel along a straight edge on very thin styrene sheet, flips that sheet over, then fastens (glue, I guess?) it to the rigid surface of the model. Is that what you did?
Before going with Microscale's 2-dimensional rivet decals I looked at Archer's raised resin rivet decals. For the number of rivet lines I needed for the 4 tanks I have the cost would have been exhorbitant. When looking at pounce wheel use on this forum a while ago I found a reference to MicroMark's raised rivet decals which are less costly. Now I need to decide, after all that tedious work, whether I want to now re-do using pounce wheel or MicroMark. The great look of 3-D rivets may push me to that re-do!
-Chuck
Hello All,
Check out this thread:
Did or Do Paint Shops Make Mistakes?
Not all paint jobs are perfect and a little imperfection might not be a bad thing.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
stayboltWhen looking at pounce wheel use on this forum a while ago I found a reference to MicroMark's raised rivet decals which are less costly. Now I need to decide
I used Micro-Mark's raised rivet decals with great success. I am very happy with them.
Hello Kevin,
The Micro-Mark rivets on your cars look very realistic. I didn't know about theirs until I had already applied Microscale's 2-dimensional ones. The only 3-D rivets I'd seen were Archer's, which for the number I need, would be expensive. I'm now tempted to remove the 2-Ds and replace them with Micro-Mark's or use a pounce wheel as suggested by "doctorwayne".
The current 2-D rivets on my storage tanks are about 5 (HO) scale inches apart, which looks reasonable. I'd estimate they're maybe 3/4 or 1 scale in. in diameter. The Micro-Mark website photos show a couple of spacings on their decal sheets. Is one of them close to 5 in.? The rivets look to be all the same diameter. What would you estimate it is?
staybolt...Hadn't heard of a pounce wheel until you mentioned it. I found other forum "rivet posts" afterward. One said he runs wheel along a straight edge on very thin styrene sheet, flips that sheet over, then fastens (glue, I guess?) it to the rigid surface of the model. Is that what you did?...
Yeah, the rivets were done on .005" sheet styrene, which was then wrapped around each of the three tanks, which were nothing but very thick cardboard tubes which had held paper for an office writing machine. The wrappers were overlapped at the back of the tanks, and that's the only place that they were glued, as it's easy to damage such thin plastic using solvent-type cements. The tops of the tanks were done with .010" sheet styrene, with a wedge of material removed so that they could be formed into shallow cones, again with the overlap at the back of the tanks.
Here's a wider view of the tanks...
I have used both the Archer rivets and those from MicroMark and while the Archer ones are considerably more expensive, in my opinion, they're a better product.
I used the MicroMark ones on the cars shown above, mainly because I was doing five of these cars, which needed lots of rivet detail to make them appear fairly close to their prototype. Many of them required using MEK as the setting agent, rather than a decal-setting solvent such as Solvaset.This scratchbuilt boxcar, an experiment to assess the properties of aluminum tape for modelling, used the Archer rivets, which set well using Solvaset. Using MEK on this car would likely have had a negative effect on the tape's adhesive, especially at the tape's edges...
dew3896 This is a great thread. doctorwayne - I have admired your excellent work for a long time and would like to read the long version of your decaling tips. Would you please post them or direct me to where I might find them? Thanks. DEW
Thanks for your kind words, DEW.
I may have posted it somewhere on this Forum, but it would have likely been in reply to someone who was experiencing difficulties in applying decals.I also searched for it on my "home" Forum, but couldn't find it there, either. I do, however, have a copy of it, which is located below...
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First, I would suggest that you wash the car (or locomotive, structure, etc.), using warm water and dish detergent, then rinse it thoroughly with water and let it air-dry.Once it’s dry, airbrush it in an appropriate colour(s), then set it aside to let the paint dry/cure/harden, depending on the type of paint you use.Once that is done, airbrush the entire areas which will be decalled with Glosscote (or your preferred clear gloss) then let it fully dry until there’s no odour of solvent present on the car. Don’t apply the gloss only where the decals will be applied - for rolling stock and locomotives, those areas are usually the sides and ends - cover them completely with the gloss, even if the amount of decal work will be very minimal. Allow the clear coat to fully cure/harden - there should be no noticeable odour to it, (this minimises the chance of the setting solutions reacting with the clear coat).Next, use a sharp blade to cut the needed decals from the sheet, keeping as far away from the lettering as possible. Once you have all of the required lettering free of the main sheet, use a sharp blade (re-sharpen or replace as necessary) and working on a hard surface (I use a sheet of glass on my work desk for this), to trim away as much of the blank paper from as close as you can maneuver the blade to the lettering, using a straight down chopping motion, rather than slicing it away. If necessary, do this work under magnification (eyeglasses, Optivisor, or loupe).The reason for the two-part cutting is that slicing the image, even with a sharp blade, raises the edges along the cut line, and when you apply that decal to the model, the setting solution is often insufficient to make those edges settle completely flat onto the surface. Using a chopping motion has a couple of advantages, first that it allows you to position the tip of the blade as close as possible to the lettering, and second, that when you bring the blade down to make the cut, the chopping movement pushes the edge of the decal downward, which will allow better and easier setting of the lettering when it is time to apply that solution. Another tip to decrease the chances that your lettering job will look obvious as decals, is to trim the excess clear film from rounded letters or numerals such as B, C, O, P, 2, 3, 8, 0, etc. which are at the beginning or end of a block of lettering. F’rinstance, on a CANADIAN NATIONAL car, I would use a simple diagonal chop to remove the clear film from the top and bottom left side of the “C”, and the clear film from the “L” at the end of NATIONAL - this latter chop could be a simple diagonal from the top to the right edge of the foot, but an L-shaped cut would give even better results.The same trimming can be applied to dimensional data, too, even if you apply it in the blocks in which it’s printed. For example....CAPY 100000LD LMT 120000LT WT 49000....trim the top left corner of the “C”, the top right corner of the last “0” in the top line, and the bottom right corner of the last “0” in the bottom line with a simple diagonal chop. You will be surprised by how much difference it can make in the finished appearance.Use distilled water for soaking the decal - it's available in gallon jugs at any supermarket, and not at all expensive. This eliminates any dissolved minerals which might otherwise be present in tap water, and a gallon will do a lot of decals. Do not rush the soaking process for the decal, but allow it to release from the backing paper on its own. If it's big enough to handle with tweezers (not something small, such as a single digit for dimensional data), dip the released film into water, submerging it completely, then, as you withdraw it from the water, drag the back-side of it over the lip of the container holding the water - this helps to remove any residue left from the backing paper. Depending on the particular decal, you may want to repeat this a couple of times. Smaller decals, like blocks of dimensional data or single numerals, can be simply dipped into the water, then set on your work surface while the water frees them from the backing paper. Most decals applied using only water can be re-wet and moved an almost infinite number of times. For very small pieces of decal (a single letter or numeral, or even a period or comma, I place the dry decal near its intended place, then wet it with a drop of water on my fingertip or the end of a knife or tweezers. It can usually be slid off the backing paper easily, then maneuvered into place. Use references on the model (rivet lines, panel lines, doors, ladders, and other details) as guides to position the lettering correctly and level. Where those details aren't available, I like to cut strips of masking tape as guidelines, and when lettering with individual letters or numerals, often use a pencil to denote, on the tape, the beginning and end of each word, so that the spacing is correct. Likewise, individual letter spacing is not usually uniform, but rather depends on the particular letters and their sequence within the words. Google "kerning" for more info.
Once the decals have been applied on the gloss surface and have been blotted using a clean cloth, I use a small brush to apply a fairly weak setting solution around the perimeter of each individual pieces of decal, and also on the decals’s surface - Microscale’s Microset works well for this step. Let the decals dry fully - it usually takes 10 or 15 minutes at most.Next, I use the brush-in-cap from the Solvaset bottle to apply this stronger decal setting solution, in the same manner as the previous operation. I let this dry completely (a couple hours at least, although I often leave them overnight) then use a clean cloth over my fingertip, dipped in the distilled water to wet it, then gently rub the wet cloth over each piece of the applied and set decals - this should remove any marks left by the action of the Solvaset. Use a dry portion of the same cloth to remove any remaining water from the model’s surface.After the decals have been cleaned and have fully-dried, I overspray them with another coat of clear gloss. This step may seem unnecessary, but the gloss of the decal seldom matches exactly the gloss of the surface on which it has been applied. This overspray ensures that the entire surface has a uniform finish. If you're using an airbrush for applying the clear finish, it will dry (to-the-touch, at least) very rapidly, and you can then apply the flat (or semi-gloss, if you're modelling a fairly new car) almost immediately. After this step, the decal work is completed, and the car set aside, usually at least overnight or for a day-or-so to let the clear coats fully harden. Airbrushing gives you the option of mixing that final clear coat to whatever sheen or flatness you wish for that particular model. The car can then be weathered as you wish, but unless you're weathering using oils or chalk, I'd recommend no flat overspray over the weathering, as it usually makes the weathering effects too uniform.
If anybody finds this useful, even if only in part, please feel free to copy it.
doctorwayne - Thank you for posting the long version of your detailing tips. Great tutorial. I will definitely copy it to my "tips" file. Thanks again.
Looks like your aluminum tape experiment was worth doing....beautiful result!
staybolt Can/would you please tell me what the scale diameter of the rivets is....e.g. 5/8 in., 3/4 in., 1 in.? In Micro-Mark's website photo they all appear to be the same diameter. Are they? Also, the rivets appear in their photo to be in different scale spacings. What are they, e.g. 3 in., 5 in., 8 in.?
Mine are all packed away, so I cannot help with these questions.
Each of the decal sheets I purchased from Micro-Mark had four identical sections of 3D rivet decals.
Thanks for your kind words, Chuck. I'm not sure if I'll have need to utilise it again, but it's good to know that it's at least a do-able option.
The Micro-Mark sheets that I have (dated 2011) show no size specifications at all, nor does the accompanying instruction sheet.Each of the two identical sheets that I have are laid out as two identical halves, so yes, one half of the sheet duplicates the other half.The two sets of Archer decals are labelled as to size, with one package being 3/8" (nominal) rivets, with the heads being 5/8" in diameter, and the other 1/2" (nominal) rivets, with heads 7/8" in diameter (all dimensions in HO scale).
Comparing the Micro-Mark ones to the Archer rivets, the Micro-Mark ones are closer to the 7/8" head diameter....probably most suitable for tenders, steam locos, heavy bridges, etc., while the smaller Archer ones would have been better for things like boxcars, including my aluminum tape version. The Micro-Mark sheets are approximately 2.5 times longer and wider than the Archer sheets, but are considerably cheaper. I do feel that the Archer offering is easier to use and gives better results, but the price could be a serious drawback if you have plans to do a fleet of rolling stock or a bunch of big bridges.I seem to recall a fairly recent message from Archer on some changes coming, so maybe some new products or maybe some price improvements for us consumers....we'll see, I guess.
This is a great thread. I'm enjoying seeing the suggestions. Loving the pics too!
I've done lettering using removable marker to provide a guide line. Any cheap kid-friendly washable marker would work.