Custom Decals

[mu26aeh]

And I'm certain that guy would allow a mediocre or negative testimonial to be posted as well.  The fact that everyone is falling over themselves to get his stuff has to prove his quality

[Philip H]

The Skookumchuck Belt Line.

The Skookumchuck has belts?   

[randgust]

The Skookumchuck has belts?   

Yes, and if he sees his shadow today there will be six more weeks of postings to this thread.

[learmoia]

I like the preceeding paragraph too.  He is not too shy in his proclamation:
MY WORK IS HIGH QUALITY. JUST LOOK AT MY FEEDBACK IN CUSTOMER'S TESTIMONIAL. I HAVE CUSTOMERS WORLDWIDE AS I AM GOOD AT WHAT I DRAW. MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT. MY DECALS ARE THE BEST. . .

THE BEST PETE.... THE BEST....

[delamaize]

Hey guys, sorry but I kind of let this one slide and never came back to talk about the history of my railroad.

So the story I've come up with is that the Northern Pacific railroad originally was going to route through the Skookumchuck valley. But instead bypassed the area in favor of the route they took through what is now Tenino and into Rainier on the Prairie line. The citizens of the valley were not very happy about this, so in 1900 they were able to convince two logging railroads, the blumauer Lumber company, and the Skookumchuck Lumber company, to connect their right-of-ways and extend into vail. From there the line turns North and connects back with the Northern Pacific Prairie line in Rainier. The line primarily is there to serve the farmers, coal mines, logging, and other Industries in the valley. There is going to be passenger service, although it is going to be basically a small passenger car or drover Caboose tacked at the end of scheduled freights. The Northern Pacific also contracts with them, using the line as a bypass when needed. The line interchanges with the Northern Pacific at Tenino junction, and at Rainier.

The time period I'm modeling is matching the same time. That I will be modeling the Prairie line in eventually, 1942 through 1955. Power and Rolling Stock is mostly hand-me-down equipment purchased from other railroads, with some new stuff mixed in. Oddball power is the flavor of the week on this road. Currently they have an rsd2, RS3, and a RT624. they also have a few steam locomotive, but I have not decided on what this are yet.

[Urodoji]

https://circuscitydecals.com/

I have used several of his decals (N scale) and they are very nice !

I've purchased from Circus City a few times and have been very pleased with them.

I've also purchased from Highball Graphics and been very pleased with them as well.

[delamaize]

Hey guys, gonna bounce a crazy idea off you guys.
Anyone ever thought about making brass stencils for things like one color railroad logos? I mean, it seems like you can have brass etched in really fine and Intricate designs, I wonder if a stencil would be possible...

[Mike C]

  Not a bad idea Mike , But I wonder if the small size and closeness of everything would make the paint bleed under so much it couldn't be controlled . It may work as a distressed logo if you dry brush it gently .  Does anybody make really small ink rollers ?       Mike

[basementcalling]

Hey guys, gonna bounce a crazy idea off you guys.
Anyone ever thought about making brass stencils for things like one color railroad logos? I mean, it seems like you can have brass etched in really fine and Intricate designs, I wonder if a stencil would be possible...

Airplane and armor modelers are way ahead of model railroaders on this. While I don't know about using stencils for logos, I think they would be a terrific tool for weathering effects where sharp edges aren't always critical. A brass stencil etched for weld lines of a covered hopper side would be a welcome tool in the quiver instead of hand painting them or masking the whole side.

[Lemosteam]

The issue with etching is the up-front investment cost, especially if errors are found in the design, and the return never makes up for it. Been there, done that.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

What about 3D printing a stencil?

[Lemosteam]

At that point, a laser cut template or Circut stickyback mylar might be easier.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

At that point, a laser cut template or Circut stickyback mylar might be easier.

I think you might be onto something with the Cricut idea.

[peteski]

I think you might be onto something with the Cricut idea.

Not for N scale size dimensional data.     Maybe for some larger single-color logos.  Plus stencils will always look like they were stenciled.



You need to have supports for inner masked areas in objects or letters like B, P, O, etc.  Those would have to be mighty thin for N scale size decals.
The other problem is if the surface to be stenciled is uneven (like ribs).  Even Tampo printing has problems dealing with that.
Cricut's cutting resolution is also not all that high, plus when the blade changes direction it is not a clean cut. Again, if we were doing this for G or 0 scale, tat might be viable, but N scale?

[randgust]

Interesting, but I still think you guys are working awfully hard with expensive tools.

I'm doing all mine with four basic things:

Clear laser decal paper
an old copy of Photoshop 7.0 (that still runs in Win10 but beware of the 'big disk' error issue)
Microsoft Word or Excel to simply print and resize .JPG's.
A color laser printer.   I have access to a Ricoh 2506.  Outstanding color and resolution.

Oh, and decal sealer, just to keep ink from scratching off.

The only really tricky part is printing in white (or light colors), I don't do it much, but when I do, it's a reverse image (lettering clear, going over white paint) and match the surrounding color to the equipment color.

But I've had really, really good results.   

One of my tricks is to simply print out my test decal sheets on white paper first, cut them with scissors and check them for size and color.  I'll repeatedly do this until I get a sheet 'perfect' and then shoot it on the decal paper.

I tried and failed repeatedly with inkjet paper.  It's rubbery.  Even when sealed, it will bleed from underneath.   The laser stuff will put up with ANYTHING, including getting hammered with repeat doses of Solvaset and Dullcote.

This is as good an example as anything.    The "Cole Bros World Toured Circus" was scanned from a VERY old and yellowed Walthers HO set, and color corrected in Photoshop, reprinted in dark red.   It was also color reversed on a red background to match Floquil Caboose Red, and reverse imaged over white paint underneath on the pole wagon sides to get white lettering.   As it was all JPG's, those can be easily resized in any microsoft Excel spreadsheet or Word document, I set up a whole lot of little columns in Excel.



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/Polewagon09.jpg

I hope you realize how small that lettering is on the pole wagon, and how sharp it is.   I've done dimensional data this way.

The most outrageous application of this so far is the Cole Bros Circus advertising car; there's an oblique view of it in a book, fuzzy, black and white photo from 1914.  Had to be scanned, de-keystoned and straightened, reverse imaged, color matched to that bright red, re-proportioned to fit almost the entire side of an  old brass Western Railcraft RPO body.   That one I had to have help on with the Photoshop issues, but I got it.

Now, since I'm not selling anything here, and it's my own personal use stuff, I'm not in trouble with copyright issues.   That's important to remind people of.   That's what makes it possible to rescan old decal sets.  Even with the HO sets, I'm having to buy a set to do it.    This has come a long way since I actually carved up a rubber eraser with an xacto knife in 1972 to try to make a custom rubber-stamp herald for an N scale locomotive!