Has any one had any experience putting a stripe around the side of a tender, such as found on the tender of A&NR 2-6-0 208? I haven't been able to find a complete decal set for such an undertaking, although Microscale does make 1 and 2 inche wide stripes. Not sure how to do the curved corners.
Your thoughts and experiences in such matters are appreciated.
Tin Can,
You did not mention scale or color and 1 and 2 inch wide stripes is rather vague. But did you ever look at Automotive Pin-Stripe tape, that could be of some use to you. Comes in different colors and widths.
Frank
Depending on the colour required, there may be a commercially-available set for another road which used a bordered panel on their tenders. For example, the CPR used such striping, in gold or Dulux gold, on many of their passenger locos' tenders, and on many freight locos, too. The Boston & Maine used red striping in a similar manner.
If you can find such striping as dry transfers, but it's not the colour which you require, you can use it as a masking device to paint the striping.While my locos use straight striping above and below the roadname (not a completely enclosed panel) I often have trouble finding dry transfer lettering in the white colour which I need. The first step is to paint the tender in the colour desired for the striping and/or lettering. Once that paint has fully cured, I use drawn lines and/or masking tape to locate the position for the striping and roadname, then apply it as dry transfers. If you don't have such striping available, lay a strip of masking tape, sticky-side down, on a sheet of glass, then use a new blade and a straightedge to trim off both edges of the tape (the edges get dinged in storage, and pick up dust and fuzz, and the adhesive near the exposed edges dries out, making it less sticky). Next, use calipers or dividers to mark the width needed and cut out strips as required. For the curved corners, you can make a pattern from styrene, then use it to cut-out corners from the tape. As an alternative, you may be able to use a portion of the letter "O" or numeral "0" to form each rounded corner.The example shown below uses only numerals and straight striping, but it does demonstrate the process.After painting the cab white, I applied dry transfer numerals and striping to this cab. Do not, however, burnish the lettering in place as is normally done with dry transfers, as it will be removed later. Once all of the transfers are in place, the cab (or tender - I do all of my locos this way) is painted its normal colour. The painted-over lettering is just barely visible:
As soon as you've cleaned your airbrush, it's time to remove the dry transfers, before the paint hardens. I use small pieces of masking tape to dab at the area, lifting portions of the paint-covered transfers:
The balance of the painting is pretty straightforward. Occasionally, a small brush will be required for touch-up, but the finished product is neat and durable, with no decal film to hide:
This technique is especially useful when you need to stripe or letter a locomotive in a colour for which no lettering is likely even made, such as these free-lanced SW1200RS road switchers:
Woodland Scenics offer various stripes as dry transfers, but I couldn't locate curved corners.
While C-D-S is no longer producing dry transfers, there are lots of them still floating about. Suitable sets are #466 - CPR steam locomotive, #11 - CPR large steam locomotive, and #197 - Dominion Atlantic steam locomotive. All of these sets have the tender panel striping in either metallic gold or imitation gold (yellow) and could be used in the manner which I've outlined. If you've never used dry transfers before, be forewarned that you get only one shot at placing them correctly - once they're in place, they cannot be moved, only re-moved.
If you're interested in trying this technique, but can't find the C-D-S lettering, contact me via PM regarding a possible source.
Wayne
I should have said HO, my bad.
Wayne, thank for the pictures and your techniques. Your Mogul looks great!
Last night I was going through my decal box, and on the bottom, I found a sheet of black dry transfer stripes with corners, that I had purchased at an office supply store years and years ago for a long forgotten project. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the manufacturer (I suffer from CRS), but maybe I can find a similar product in white.
I suffer from the same malady.
If those transfers are old, they may be too dried-out to work for the painted-on lettering method, but some dry transfers have a better shelf life than others. You may wish to test them using some of the manufacturer's identification lettering usually found on such sheets. If they do prove useable, I'd suggest using pencil and/or masking tape to lay out the proposed panel position on the pre-painted white tender, then apply the corners first. If you can get them in place, even if the straight line portions aren't all useable, those portions can be done with masking tape.
Wayne,
That is a very interesting technique, plus the results look magnificent! I will have to try this.
Carey
Keep it between the Rails
Alabama Central Homepage
Nara member #128
NMRA &SER Life member
Thanks, Carey. I first got the idea from Art Curren, in a Model Railroader article about making sign lettering in colours other than those readily available commercially. I expanded on it a bit in a Paint Shop article many years ago. It covered painting diesels from my hometown's TH&B Railway. The road's colours were cream and maroon, the proper versions of which were not available and the only lettering available was yellow (and not the correct size, either).
While the cream colour was reasonably stable, the maroon varied from maroon, to boxcar red (or brown) and, on occasion, purple. I wanted models of a couple of the geeps, and took quite a few colour pictures of two particular units which were often paired. Then, in order to get the details correct, I shot a whole roll of b&w (36 photos for those who don't remember film) covering all the necessary areas.After modifying two Athearn units (all that were available at the time), I mixed some paint (Polly S - at that time, only military colours were available) and when I thought that the colour looked right, brushed a little directly onto a colour photo. Once it had dried, the painted area was undetectable unless the photo was tilted, allowing the light to fall on the matte surface of the paint.Here's a photo of a couple of the prototypes - depending on the time of day, the weather, or what the photographer had for breakfast, the colour would vary, as mentioned:
As you can see, each of the two colours is used for lettering or striping on the contrasting colour
I used C-D-S dry transfer alphabet sets and stripes to letter the units, brush-painting each as required - a multi-step procedure, obviously. The cab heralds were done free-hand with a small brush. Even though I no longer run diesels, I still have the two units.
When I was scanning the slides and negatives in order to place them in photobucket, I discovered something rather strange concerning those colour variations. I had taken photos of one of the road's switchers, probably the day of- or day after it had been painted. The "maroon" was as brown as I'd ever seen it, and the photos bore that out. However, when scanning those negatives, I used the colour correction option on my scanner and, much to my surprise, the maroon was actually maroon. My sense of colour is pretty good, but everyone to whom I've spoken about this agrees that they definitely didn't always look that colour. Here's one of those photos, corrected: