Wagon Lettering

[rhobat bryn]

I am currently painting a 009 Parkside Dundas Tralee & Dingle Covered Cattle Wagon and have reached the point of deciding how best to apply lettering.
My website trawl has not resulted in any really satisfactory solutions.  Does anyone have experience of solving this problem?

[Darren Hedges]

Do you want to use transfers or paint the lettering on?

If you want to use transfers, have you a preferred type? I.e. waterslide, pressfix, rub down, etc?

If you want specific Tralee and Dingle lettering and numbers then I would recommend that you give Peter Blackham a try at Blackham Transfers, he may do exactly what you are after.

If you are just looking for generic numbers and lettering then try the pressfix range from HRMS I've used a lot of these over the years and would recommend them.

Darren.

[rhobat bryn]

Hello Darren, nice to speak to you again and thanks for your welcome onto the NGRM forum website.

Although I'm building a Tralee & Dingle cattle van, I'm not modelling that railway.  It's a fictitious railway called 'Rheilffordd Dyffryn Mynach' whose raison d'etre is the woollen industry, encompassing livestock, wool and the export of welsh flannel.  The period is roughly between 1880 and 1920, the intention being that there is no internal combustion engine; and the location is somewhere between mid and north Wales.  The first station I'm building is the harbour station called 'Porth Illtud'.  The station is shared with another railway company called 'Rheilffordd Cwm Llechi' which joins the Dyffryn Mynach further up the line and provides slate for export.

This means that I shall be looking for at least two styles of lettering for the two railways and therefore would lean towards the generic category.  This being my first ever attempt at constructing a 009 anything, I'm eager to start with the easiest option first which I assume is transfers.  However I am open-minded about which type since I have no experience of any of them; I would be grateful for any advice you could offer as to the pros and cons of each type or indeed the ease or difficulty of painting the numbers on.

I had a look at the HMRS site previously but couldn't find a list of generic letters.  Perhaps you could enlighten me as to your experience of using them in a little more detail.

Am I right in assuming, by the way, that you are the Darren Hedges of Draig Goch fame?

[Darren Hedges]

Although I'm building a Tralee & Dingle cattle van, I'm not modelling that railway.  It's a fictitious railway called 'Rheilffordd Dyffryn Mynach' whose raison d'etre is the woollen industry, encompassing livestock, wool and the export of welsh flannel.  The period is roughly between 1880 and 1920, the intention being that there is no internal combustion engine; and the location is somewhere between mid and north Wales.  The first station I'm building is the harbour station called 'Porth Illtud'.  The station is shared with another railway company called 'Rheilffordd Cwm Llechi' which joins the Dyffryn Mynach further up the line and provides slate for export.

Hi Rhobat. In the period you are intending to portray I think that the railway would use it

[rhobat bryn]

You're probably right in that I may be re-writing history.  However my rationale is that while all legal documents would have been submitted in English, the company was formed by a group of local Welsh speaking businessmen whose confidence, gained by their new found prosperity from both the flannel and slate industries, led them to take this early initiative in promoting Welsh as a language of commerce in a predominantly Welsh-speaking area.  The government in Westminster was concerned at this apparent challenge to the prevailing order but, provided they submitted all accounts and correspondence in English and the incident was confined to one mid-Wales valley, they did not consider it of sufficient significance to warrant any direct intervention on their part, concerned as they were with governing half of the world at the time.  The local entrepreneurs were noted benefactors of the 1880 National Eisteddfod held in Caernarfon and a footnote in history states that it was the descendants of these businessmen that went on to participate in the formation of Plaid Cymru in 1925, shortly after the railway went into decline.

Your translation of the name is broadly correct.  Dyffryn is more 'vale' than 'valley' so either 'Vale of Mynach' or 'Mynach Vale' would suffice.

Many thanks for your comments on transfers.  I shall look again at the websites you mentioned but you seemed to suggest that getting hold of generic lettering sheets might be difficult.  I wonder whether its possible to obtain custom made lettering from somewhere.  You mentioned your use of number sheets; how have you managed for lettering?

As for fame, it's just a matter of time Darren.

[tedp]

I have done a lot of lettering using Peter Blackham's dry transfers which are very good. However, there is an alternative which only takes some camouflaging but gives you absolute control over your lettering:

The lettering and numbering on this van (based on a Cooper Craft kit) was made using a computer print. I made up a sheet on a grey background and reduced it to various sizes, importing the image in a MS Word file. After printing out I chose the right size so the lettering would fit on a single plank of the model, then cut it out and stuck it on with matte varnish. Some work with grey paint on the edges of the paper sorted that out, and despite a slight difference in grey hue it satisfied me. Judge for yourself...  ;D

PS more examples including a T&D van can be seen on this page: http://www.009dutch.nl/cdr/main/pages/estock.htm. Apart from using transfers I did a lot of lettering by hand, but that becomes shaky, so I prefer other methods. Towards the bottom of the page indicated are a few examples of colourful private owner stock made with printed sides...

[rhobat bryn]

Many thanks for your comments, Ted and it was very helpful to see some practical examples of how its done.  You mentioned Blackham Transfers in your post.  I believe its the case that he does custom made transfers as well; perhaps you could confirm this.  If it is, I came across a website called 'The Font Shop' from which you can download a vast array of different fonts.  I was wondering whether it would be possible to send examples to him so that he could make transfers from them.

[tedp]

Yes, Peter Blackham does custom made transfers, but I never ordered any. I'm not sure about minimum resolution. I think you should email him about requirements and the procedure for your own artwork.

[Darren Hedges]

You could of course make your own water slide or rub down transfers using the papers available from here (click on the highlighted word for the link) and your home printer.

Unfortunately you can't print white on a home printer, but if you chose a light colour for your freight stock you could have black lettering and numbers.

I keep saying that I'm going to try this someday, but haven't got round to it yet.

Darren.

[Graeme Dunbar]

 Hi Darren,

You beat me to it! Yes, they do work well, though I have only used the laser printer version of the waterslide transfer/decal paper from Crafty Computer Paper. The Inkjet type needs to be sprayed with a waterproof coating first. I have not tried them over surfaces with raised detail and don't know how the slide softening solutions that are used in this situation with affect them. I've used them on a museum model of an ROV (underwater robot) that has spent the last 6 years in a tank of water in the Aberdeen Maritime Museum, so, I'd say they are pretty reliable!

To "print" white, there is a fudged way of doing it. Choose the type with white backing and print the surrounding of the letters in the background colour. In my case it was fairly easy as I had a black background. (It was actually yellow lettering, but yellow on clear substrate over black paint does not work well.)

The difficulty, unless you can persuade the printer to print very small sheets is that you can get through a lot of paper doing trial runs to get a colour match. Given the small size of the finished transfer the easiest solution is to print out multiple copies with slightly differing colours and choose the best match. The colour match is unlikely to be perfect, but trim fairly close and then "tickle" the edges of the transfer with the same paint used to paint the body of the wagon, coach etc without going up to the letter edges to blend the colour in.

[Darren Hedges]

Hi Graeme. I've been thinking about the printing white problem, and I've come up with a similar solution I think.

Paint all your freight stock light grey and print white numbers on black using white transfer paper. The printer won't actually print the numbers, just the black background but the white transfer paper will make it appear that the numbers are printed.

This will give you white numbers on a black panel similar in style to what British Railways used on unfitted goods stock.

You could print a reasonable quantity of numbers and useful words on a single black background and then cut the 'panel' to size as required. Would probably work on bauxite liveried stock too.

Actually thinking about it even more, the actual numbers/lettering doesn

[rhobat bryn]

I've sent an e-mail to Peter Blackham so I can let you know how I get on and more specifically what the process for getting such transfers produced is.

On an off-theme topic, can anyone tell me how to change my password on the Members Forum?

[Darren Hedges]

On an off-theme topic, can anyone tell me how to change my password on the Members Forum?

Click on the 'profile' tab on the top menu bar, in your profile page click on 'Account Related Settings'

Where it says 'Choose Password' enter your new password in the box, where it says 'Verify password' re-enter your new password in the box

Where it says 'Current Password' enter your current password in the box, click on the 'Change Profile' button.

Your new password should be set.

Darren.

[rhobat bryn]

Many thanks Darren.  The password has been duly changed.