Login
or
Register
Subscriber & Member Login
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Login
Register
Home
»
Model Railroader
»
Forums
»
General Discussion (Model Railroader)
»
Homegrown Decals (old topic, from March 2005)
Edit topic
Updated your discussion topic below.
Subject
Enter a subject for your topic. Maximum 150 characters.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
<h2>Home-Grown Decals, Part 1: Diagonal Striping</h2> <br /> <br />OK, so you want to put tiger stripes (or zebra stripes, candy-cane stripes, whatever...) on your modern-era hood diesel? And you do NOT want to go the old "masking-and-spray-painting" route? Well I don't blame you, and what's more, you DON'T HAVE TO! <i>Decals</i> are a cleaner [and saner] option, and I'll show you how I went about doing that on an HO scale Kato SD38-2, factory-painted for the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern (EJ&E, a.k.a. "The J"). <br /> <br />Before I start this discussion, I just want to mention: You <i>can</i> purchase "stripe" decal sheets, including the large CN style, at some hobby stores. But what if your LHS or online distributor doesn't carry them or hasn't had them in stock for awhile - <i>then</i> what? That's where my Home-Grown Decal approach comes in. <br /> <br />[HINT: If you already purchased your stripe decals, you may now skip to the paragraph immediately after the photo of the newly-printed decal sheets.] <br /> <br />Aside from a model loco already painted in the <i>base color</i> (mine is orange), you will need blank decal film. I strongly recommend the <b>Testors Decal System</b> - that is especially tailored to people like [most of] us modelers. All you need is a desktop computer, a graphical editing tool (MS-Paint will probably suffice), and an <i>inkjet</i> printer - NOT a laser printer. Here is a picture of their <b>Decal Paper</b> and an aerosol spray can of their <b>Decal Bonder</b> solution: <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/01_raw_materials.jpg[/img] <br />I bought these at my LHS. If you want more info on either of these fine products, you may goto: <br />http://testors.com/catalog_item.asp?itemNbr=2288 for the clear film paper, <br />or <br />http://testors.com/catalog_item.asp?itemNbr=2293 for details about the bonder spray. <br />[A word-to-the-wise: Always buy these items separately, NEVER buy the 'starter kit' - the decal paper is rolled-up inside the box, and regardless of how much you try to re-flatten it, decal ink will NEVER adhere properly to it - and you don't want to make this discovery at 10:30pm on a Saturday night![banghead] ] <br /> <br />Next, you need to have an electronic [preferably '.GIF'] image of at least one side, plus the front and rear end views of the paint scheme you wi***o create. A friend of mine here at Trains.com showed me an excellent online source of scale locomotive drawings: the <b>Railroad Paint Shop</b>, operated by railfan.net. They have a broad range of blank drawings of side- and end-views of diesel locomotives made by EMD, GE, Alco, and others. As long as you agree to include a link to their web site (http://paintshop.railfan.net/), they allow you to download, modify, and publish <i>online</i>* any of their drawings free of charge. <br />[*Different rules apply to hardcopy printing or commerical publication.] <br /> <br />Here are the side and front/rear end drawings of an SD38-2 decorated in my private scheme, the Iron Belt: <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/images/sd38-2_side_IB01e.gif[/img] <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/images/sd38_end_IB01e.gif[/img] <br /> <br />As you can see, these drawings contain the base [orange] color, plus a lot of blue lines to indicate the location of grilles, access hatches, etc.; these will have to be removed from the target pattern, using your graphical editing software. In my example below, I only plan to use the black diagonal striping. Hovever, to give myself the option of being able to apply a <i>single large sheet</i> instead of smaller individual pieces, I am 'whiting out' the adjacent areas as well. These will be invisible if clear decal film is used instead of white. <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/02_solid_black_section.gif[/img] <br /> <br />After solidifying the desired decal areas, I cut-and-pasted a copy of the entire image, 'flipped' it horizontally, and positioned it exactly beneath the original drawing. Since the walkway on the right-hand side of any 2nd- or 3rd-generation EMD hood unit is ~6 inches lower than the left, the diagonal stripe sections all had to be increased to the same length as the last two stripes at the rear. <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/02__sd38_side_stripes.gif[/img] <br /> <br />The end target areas also needed to be blacked/whited-out. Even though a single copy would be sufficient, I decided to copy-and-paste a clone of the two drawings since (1) I knew I could fit that onto a single blank decal sheet, and (2) it's always good to have spare copies in case something gets messed up. <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/02sd38_end_stripes.gif[/img] <br /> <br />Now I was ready to begin the decal printing process, except for a minor problem: The Paint Shop images I used are 1:55 scale, <i>not</i> 1:87 as I actually needed. To workaround this size mismatch, I would have to adjust the output properties of my printer (an Epson Stylus Color CX4600) to make the printed image appear at the same size as my locomotive. <br /> <br />One important note to consider: A sheet of the Testors decal paper measures 5.5" by 8.5", exactly HALF the length of a standard 8x11 letter sheet. The decal image document <i>must always be printed in PORTRAIT mode</i>, never in Landscape - otherwise you will not be able to correctly position the decal paper in your printer. <br /> <br />The next thing to do was see exactly <i>how much</i> of the locomotive's surface area could fit across an 8.5" sheet of paper. When I placed my model on a blank sheet (Portrait mode, remember!), I noticed that the end platforms were overhanging (see the image below). <i>Nada</i> problem, the area I wanted to cover does not include them - so I simply 'cropped' the platforms out of the image. (An upside-down piece of Testors decal paper is also shown to illustrate the sheet size comparison.) <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/02_overhang_ends.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />After a half-dozen test printouts on plain paper - with adjustments to the output size-scaling property - the image sizes were visually identical to the model locomotive, as shown in the following two photos: <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/21_side_image_exact_HO.jpg[/img] <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/22_end_image_exact_HO.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />The images were now ready to be committed to decal film, which I did; and immediately afterward, I sprayed on a heavy layer of Testors Decal Bonding solution to protect the ink from water. <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/23_decals_freshly_printed.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />[** If you are using store-bought stripe decals, <i>HERE</i> is the place to jump over to....] <br /> <br />The next thing I did was to cut out an inclusive pattern of all the diagonal stripes on each side, and place each one on its corresponding target area to ensure proper size and alignment. (Remember this is [un-processed] clear decal paper sitting on the unit, not a CN wannabe![:D]) <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/24_verify_pattern_alignment.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />If I had wanted to use a single large sheet to cover the entire area, I could have done so; but I prefer to avoid any unnecessary obscuring of detail, so I cutout each black stripe individually: <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/25_cut_separate_pieces.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />Next - and I didn't HAVE to do it this way, but I chose to, in order to avoid a last-minute discovery that the stripes were not properly spaced apart - I applied the stripe pieces starting at the opposite ends. Then I placed the center stripe to split the target area in two, applying the remaining stripes after that. <i><b>IMPORTANT</b> - Do NOT apply ANY Solvaset (or similar decal-setting solution) UNTIL you have placed EVERY stripe section in its correct position!</i> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/26_start_at_opposite_ends.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />NOW, you may <i>carefully</i> apply the Solvaset... <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/27_no_solvaset_until_complete.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />For the end surfaces, I decided to keep the stripes together on a common sheet of film. However, a certain amount of 'jigsaw' style cutting was necessary to ensure that the decal sections would fit onto their respective target areas... <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/28_cutout_and_align_end_patterns.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />...and they did: <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/29_apply_end_patterns.jpg[/img] <br /> <br />Here are some views of the semi-finished model [still needing lettering/logos] in the next four image frames. <br /> <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/30_fwd_left_view.jpg[/img] <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/31_head_on_view.jpg[/img] <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/32_fwd_right_view.jpg[/img] <br />[img]http://trainweb.org/ironbelt/sd38/33_rear_right_view.jpg[/img] <br />
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
E-mail Subscribe
Check the box below if you want to receive e-mail notifications when replies are made to this thread.
Receive notifications
Update Discussion Topic
Subscriber & Member Login
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Login
Register
Users Online
Erik_Mag
see all »
Search the Community
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Model Railroader Newsletter
See all
Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter
and get model railroad news in your inbox!
Sign up