Good Day Everyone.
I am having trouble getting the font size for my H.O scale buildings, rolling stock etc. Would someone with experience in this tell me the size font and type of decal paper used. Thank you in advance for your help.
Freelancing MCRR/NYC Northern Division - Angelo
That might depend on your era. The Art Deco signage of the 30's would be different than earlier or modern signage. However painted signs on buildings lasted decades. Faded Baltimore Signs
I am still in the planning stages for signs but I am looking at Bookman, Franklin Gothic and Baskerville Old Face. I am using open source office word processing, I have no idea if those are available in WORD. font sizes in the 24 -28 range.
For rolling stock and locos, I am thinking I need something that is higher than the normal proportions of font. I have not found anyway to stretch the font to a higher selectively.
White in for inkjet printers is not available, so you need to print a black background, and have a white section of wall. The letters in white, will not actually print, but be spaces surrounded by black, it that makes sense. The underlying white will show through.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
More Signs
Have You considered dry transfer lettering/numbers? Black,white,gold,red, blue, etc. In different styles,fonts. I use these people a lot for all My lettering.......I like them better than decals:
http://www.pcbsupplies.com/dry-transfer-lettering-caps-and-lower-case-alphabet-decals/
Take Care!
Frank
Above is the subway map I made, and below is it's placement at Prospect Park station.
Here is a passageway at 14th Street, look at the posters, and the token booth at then end of the passageway. I didn't put the turnsties in.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I use Adobe Pagemaker. With it you can see the size of the page as marked with a ruler and you can match the scale on your monitor with an actual ruler so that what you see on your monitor is the same size as it is going to print. This works out best because font size varies from font to font. Some fonts and taller than others etc. Then of course you have to measure the size of the sign you are printing and fill the space with the text. I usually print a rough draft on regular paper so I can see how it is going to look and make any changes needed before I waste decal paper which is expensive. I always buy my decal paper from http://www.decalpaper.com/ Laser printers work the best. Make sure you use the proper type of paper for your printer. Inkjet paper you have to use a sealer or the ink will wash off. Use clear paper for text only decals. Use white paper for art. White paper is mandatory if you are printing white unless you have a special printer which has white ink.
Nominally there are 72 points to an inch, so 1 point in HO scale is roughly 1.2 inches in the real world. If you were modeling a sign with 12" letters, the decal would print with 10 point font.
That’s a good starting point but not necessarily true. 72 points/inch (roughly) is a constant, but a font’s point size is measured from the top of the tallest ascender (I.e. the top of a lowercase f) to the bottom of the lowest descender (I.e the bottom op a lower case p). Optically this isn’t a huge deal with the majority of gothic and Roman fonts, but can be significant with scripts and highly stylized or fancier fonts.
Make a guess and print the sign on plain paper. Cut it out and see how it looks when placed against the model. I use MS Word to print text, or occasionally MS Paint. You may need to do it a few times, but printing on plain paper is cheap. Once you've got the font size you want, then print on decal paper.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasleyMake a guess and print the sign on plain paper.
Beside or underneath your test font, type what font and size it is.
You can copy and paste the same signage over and over and then change the font or font size to see what you like. Then print it on paper as suggested.
To be accurate, each point of a font is equal to 1/72 of an inch. A 12 point font will be 1/6 of an inch or 0.166666667 inches high or 2.222222227 feet in N scale. Depending how large you want to make your font you can use these figures as a guide.
LION does NOT use Adobe PageMaker, at least not since the Windows 3.1 version. Too Expensive. LION does not like Adobe's by-the-month modle of business.
Him uses Serif Page Plus ver 9, It is on sale cheap since Serif has moved to what they call the Affinity line of products.
As good as Adobe or MS Publisher, easier to learn.
1 point type: No problem, unless you actually want to read what the sign says on the layout. LION has some very intersting signs that only him can read.
ROARING
I rehab and rebuild rolling stock and structures frequently for my layout, often making my own lettering decals. I have found- in relation to structures- that you can't always use exact scale measurements. For example, at Home Depot address numbers are variously sized between 3 and 5 inches tall, depending on style. That is real world size. Try to duplicate that at 1/87 scale and you end up with nano-sized font sizes. I cheat a bit and make them big enough to be readable- otherwise the attempt at scale accuracy fails. On the other hand, with rolling stock I use existing decal numbers and letters as a guide (Microscale lettering) and try to duplicate those already-researched sizes when I make my own. I keep a master file copy for use with each project, saving the specific lettering sheet for any particular car as a separate file- that way I can ensure continuity in my lettering across all cars (those reworked by me).
Cedarwoodron
BroadwayLionLION does NOT use Adobe PageMaker, at least not since the Windows 3.1 version. Too Expensive. LION does not like Adobe's by-the-month modle of business.
I use Adobe PageMaker 7.0 which is from 2002. I don’t like any programs that you have to pay a subscription for either. If the old version works why update it? It works fine with Windows 7 which I am still using. I don't like updates. If it works why fix it?
By the way.... you don't have to only use decals. For many of my signs I use photo paper.
These are the most recent signs that I have made. All of these signs are photo paper, except for the sign above the front door which is just white paint.
Funny thing about point size:
I was designing decals in Adobe Illustrator. For me, a point was 1/100 of an inch. Not at all what I expected (1/72), but dimensionally more useful to me.
A lesson for all, as mentioned by others: do some test printing to make sure you're getting what you think you're getting.
Nice Burger King signs!
Ed
If you are using a laser printer, then do not use photographic paper. Find some glosy card stock and go with that.