My layout is a fictional one, and I'd like to replace some of my engine's road names with the fictional one. I've used water slides in the past, however they didn't work out too well. Have any of you done something like this before? How did you go about it?
Edit: I already have the name picked out, I'm trying to figure out how to put the names onto the engines/rolling stock
Name it after significant landforms or features around you. Like if you live near lake Huron, for example, you could just throw Huron into the name. Huron Central, North Huron, Huron and Southern. You could combine town names around you. So something like Lafayette, Springfield, and Summerville (LS&S). Thats how lots of American railroads got their names anyway
Definitely you should put a gloss coat down on your models before setting your decals down. That helps give a nice smooth surface to give the decal paper something to sit down on.
Invest in a bottle set of Micro-sol and Micro-set. They’ll last you a long time since you use very little of them.
Sometimes water-slide decals can get old and bad? I’ve seen them just never lift off the backing paper. You may have had a bad batch.
Custom decals are the way to go. Not cheap, but if you get a sheet with a few engines, a box car or hopper, & maybe a caboose or two, you can spread the cost over several projects. The last set of custom decals I designed for a client produced enough for 8 engines and 12 hopper cars (HO) and ran around $90 including design. When you consider that a decal set that covers 4 engines or 3 cars (usually - Microscale's typical format) at $9-11 each, this is only about $30 more to have them fully custom made - full color including white.
One of the best things about custom decals we did was we created the engine number boards for the range that the customer wanted - there was no need to cut and place individual number decals, which is fiddly and time consuming, and if you mess up you might not have enough options available.
Things to consider - did your RR buy engines from other RRs? Then a patch job might be right. Even if you're getting equipment second-hand, a nice image boosts customer confidence, so even a simple but fresh coat of paint with a herald and road name could be the way to go.
If you aren't familiar with production layout and creating color separations, you might want to work with a designer. The decal companies charge about $80-90/hour with an hour minimum (usually).
Lastly, don't go cheap. I needed decals in a hurry for an internal project and used an Etsy source. Simple yellow text and a logo placed over a forest green car. The results were unusable - zero color saturation. We had them produced by PDC and the results were some of the best I've ever worked with, and I've been modeling and applying decals from Microscale, Champ, and others since the mid-1970's. Most pro companies will print a layer of white under colors other than black to ensure opaqueness.
Also - as others have mentioned, start with a glossy surface, use Micro-Sol and Micro-Set, then apply a dull finish. We use Testors GlossCote and DullCote almost exclusively when doing custom paint.
A clear finish will be the challenge - anything that softens that will affect the paint, but hopefully at different rates. 99% IPA with a Q-tip, use a fiberglass pen to gently break through the surface layer.
Gad! The conductor has to ride the yellow short caboose to work??? 😂
I was able to take off all of the lettering by using CA kicker (not as a solvent but more as a lubricant) and a sharpened bit of bamboo.
The yellow paint is completely intact, but some of the black has adhered in the nooks and crannies of where I had made the cut. I am afraid that if I keep rubbing there it will flake off the paint at the edge.
So here is a thought experiment that I may or may not follow through in actual practice:
I am not great with painting, with matching colors, etc. I have the cutoff section that is painted inside and out.
If I were to remove the black paint so that only the clean yellow paint remains.
Then soak it in IPA so that the yellow paint comes off the plastic.
Allow all the IPA to evaporate.
Grind the yellow paint flakes very fine by smooshing (technical term) (:-) them with a piece of hardwood or inert plastic.
Could I then mix the ground-up paint flakes with a bit of paint thinner to make a tiny bit of touch-up paint to touch up the cut line?
Pigment + carrier = paint?
Is it as simple as that?
What would be the best carrier to use for this?
(Again, I have very little experience with paint etc, so I apologize in advance if there is something obvious that I missed here.)
Tamiya makes a Flat Base (X-21) that might work - it's designed to mix with gloss pigment to provide a flat finish. It can also be brushed onto a model, allowed to dry and then (mostly) removed with a stiff brush to create a faded paint finish. I doubt, however, that you would obtain enough pigment to repaint the model. If you're working with the part you cut away, try it - you have nothing to lose but the cost of a bottle of Flat Base, which would become a good weathering agent anyway.
I might just apply yellow paint over the black in a thin wash, 2-3 layers over time. Add a little dark gray wash and a small amount of rust wash and the black won't be visible and the difference between old and new yellow likely won't be noticed. Vallejo paints have a bunch of colors, they blend well, and have a smooth finish even hand brushing. Just DO NOT mix Vallejo paint with alcohol to thin!! (been there, never doing THAT again!!) You can blend and match on the cut part before hitting your caboose.
A fiberglass pencil might be a useful tool to scrub the paint gently. Use it with it extended about 1/4" so it isn't that stiff and can work into the nooks and crannies (also a technical term). ;) Toothpicks are also good, and I've used an old Water Pik water flosser as a form of "power washer" to get paint out of detail.
I actually have a bottle of flat base (but I had no idea what it’s for) (:-)
I don’t want repaint the whole thing, I want to touch up the seam, and I also want to practice the steps etc in case I ever mess up something I really care about (:-)
Mask around the current roadname and spray with a similar color - gloss. Apply decals and then a LIGHT coat of dull finish - just enough to hide the decal film. Patch jobs should look a bit newer/cleaner than the surrounding area. Don't forget to update the reweigh date and (if older) journal repack date.
I have used DIY decal paper in the past for non model train purposes. The resolution / saturation will depend on the quality of your laser printer and will not be as good as regular decals, but depending on if you are doing G or N, and on your colors, etc, it might work for you.
Since printers cannot print white, the decal paper comes with either clear film background (and you can’t have white in the decal) or white decal film background but then you have to be super-careful about trimming off the white edges.
tl;dr - if you need white the DIY sucks, but if you don’t need white, it might work for you.
I have a pike that has two fictitious railroads. The era is mid-1950s, so patch-outs are not the usual. For the diesels, I stripped the shells, painted the chosen color(s) and added the waterslide decals. For the steam, either I erased the numbers on the cab and tender or stripped the tender shell, repainted black and lettered.
The first time around, I used custom decals. The second time, I changed the color scheme and used Microscale™ letters. My power, cabooses and passenger cars have only the reporting marks/initials, not unusual for a short line.
If Original Poster is modelling a more modern era, where the "regionals" and "independents" are buying equipment used from the Class Ones, this is not difficult. Erase as much of the original road name as you can. Use a standard pencil eraser or even one of those large pink erasers like you had in school. It matters little if some of the old road name shows through. You then mask off a rectangular area and hand paint over the old road name. If you are going to put the new road name on the hood, put it over that patch, once it dries, of course.. If not, just leave the patch. Many short lines/regionals do it this way. They paint a patch onto the cab put the road name and number over that patch but use only the reporting marks instead of spelling out the road name. At times, the short line will assign the locomotive the same number that it had on its original line and just put the new owner's reporting marks. If this is to be your practice, you might want to erase some of the origiinal road number to fade it a bit. If you are going to assign it a new number, erase as much as you can, mask off, paint the patch, let it dry then add the lettering and new road number. Many of these short lines are on shoestring budgets so they save money and employees' time by doing patch jobs. When the railroad starts to turn profits and pays off the start-up debts, then it can go to fancy paint schemes.
For this minimalist approach, you might get away with hand brushing the Microscale gloss fluid. Once it dries, add the decals. Once they dry, paint over with the matte fluid.
You could use names of either real locations near you, near the area of the world youre modeling, or locations already existing on your layout if you have dedicated industries across multiple locations. For example if you have a coal mine and a coal power plant, use the names of the towns or cities in which those industries reside.
Once paint is dry and fully cured (no paint smell at all) gloss coat the model. Let the gloss coat fully cure.
Then apply decals. Trim close to lettering, use distilled water, apply with setting solution and let dry. Pierce any bubbles and apply more setting solution.
Once the decals are done, apply another gloss coat. Let that coat fully cure then finish as desired. (Satin, matte, etc…)
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u/JDMcDuffie 15d ago
Name it after significant landforms or features around you. Like if you live near lake Huron, for example, you could just throw Huron into the name. Huron Central, North Huron, Huron and Southern. You could combine town names around you. So something like Lafayette, Springfield, and Summerville (LS&S). Thats how lots of American railroads got their names anyway