Lettering and Artwork for Wagons

kedwards

kedwards

Caving, Garden Railways & more caving. Fan of TTTE
The nearest station to my new railway was Stoke Works which served the local salt works. The works had a fairly extensive network of railway sidings and the owner, John Corbett purchased over 400 wagons that looked like this 00 gauge example made by Bachmann Branchline.

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I really need some of these wagons for the Salt Works Sidings on my new railway, but no one makes them for 45mm track. ☹
I'm thinking of using a set of brown Bachmann Thomas the Tank Engine trucks and adding lettering. Help please. What would be the best way to do this?
Is there software available for creating the artwork? How could it be printed? Is there a company that would do it? Would it cost more than the wagons?

I would be very grateful if anyone can point me in the right direction.

Keith
 
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Custom Model Decals should be able to help. We print at 1440dpi onto quality waterslide decal paper in white and CMYK colours with water resistant inks. We have produced decals in 4mm, 7mm, 16mm and other scales. Contact us at Custom Model Decals Contact & Support

We aim to get our decals to you in 14 days from your approval of the design.
 
I can see the Thomas Coal Wagon as a donor, but it is a 7 planker and you need a 5 so some hacking which may upset some of the detail. Plus a respray to grey. As for lettering, bespoke could be available but another would be computer printed on stick paper also coloured all grey may work. If you go this route I could probably print something up for you, though the circular part would be tricky unless I had a scan of it with a complete sideways view.
 
You can buy inkjet Water Slide decal paper and print your own decals, I have looked at it but not bought any yet and tried it, don't know if anybody on here has tried the stuff, it's around £15 for 20 A4 sheets so not expensive if it works ?
 
LGB-Sid said:
You can buy inkjet Water Slide decal paper and print your own decals, I have looked at it but not bought any yet and tried it, don't know if anybody on here has tried the stuff, it's around £15 for 20 A4 sheets so not expensive if it works ?
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Finding a printer that prints white is the problem most people have. Normal inkjet and laser printers are incapable of printing white. The Alps printers used by several decal makers used to be the way it was done but Alps stopped making printers years ago and the ink cartridges are now very difficult, and expensive, to buy. Custom Model Decals are using a very high definition Inkjet system that can print in white at >1400 dpi resolution using water resistant inks on waterslide decal paper with text readable down to O.6mm high.599C29CC-B2FD-4D29-A525-FCCB525FAA81.jpeg
 
LGB-Sid said:
You can buy inkjet Water Slide decal paper and print your own decals, I have looked at it but not bought any yet and tried it, don't know if anybody on here has tried the stuff, it's around £15 for 20 A4 sheets so not expensive if it works ?
Click to expand...

I have tried this, the problem is that inkjet ink is water soluble so it is quite difficult to 'fix' or seal as the print can run when you put the transfer in water. I understand that lazer jet printers use a plastic to print which does not dissolve in water. Lazer jet colour printers are available for between £100 a £150 and above . Not sure of the quality of the lower priced ones. I intend to investigate, when we are 'let out'!!
Dave
 
I have used the inkjet water-slide paper, it works, but you need to use transparent spray over the print before using to protect the printing, and the result can be a thick decal, but yes it does work, oh and you can't print white!
 
Never thought about the lack of White, as when you print colour pics you use white paper normally rather than print the actual White as a color :)
 
You can buy white decal paper so that you can print white by omission but that means you need a coloured surround for it to show up.

David
 
Homo Habilis said:
Keith:

There are several companies in the US that could probably make your labels at a reasonable price. There are a few others but these are that ones whose work I am familiar with.

G Scale Graphics

Cedarleaf Custom Decals
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I have used Cedarleaf, and Stan was very helpful, quick to respond to emails, and I paid circa £70:00 for a very full coloured A4 sheet of my own design
 
JimmyB said:
I have used Cedarleaf, and Stan was very helpful, quick to respond to emails, and I paid circa £70:00 for a very full coloured A4 sheet of my own design
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Apart from one foray into supporting my local deal maker (Tom Eivers of Endon Valley Decals - top geezer, immensely helpish and fast), I've only ever used Stan Cedarleaf over in the USA since around 1998.

He'll read what you want, sent you a dummy for you to correct, and after that, at most in my experience, a week. before you get your decals.

G Scale Graphics, Del Tapporo, makes incredible vinyl lettering. I've only gotten his stuff second-hand - unused, obviously, but fifteen years later it is still as good as the day it was applied.
 
Inkjet decal paper has always seemed too thick to me.

I have an ALPS Microdry technology printer, now rather ancient and it's not been fired up for a while but in its day it was great for doing decals in white and metallics on very thin custom carrier film. I used it for various N gauge projects.

I notice there is a company which produces white laser toner cartridges and toner/printer bundles. I could be interested, but it's not particularly cheap and it does seem to be targeted more at textiles and souvenir mugs etc. I'd want to keep a laser printer dedicated to the white cartridge, and I'd also be concerned about the registration of multiple passes if printing multi-colour decals.

White printing with Ghost White Toner Transfer and Sublimation
 
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I like the idea of having decal-printed rivets, like Archer Decals do in the USA. After having put 1480 individual plastic rivets on a model recently - of three different kinds - you can see how useful it would have been for me to have heard of you before now.
 
We tried the idea of adding the 3d rivets to the decal using the printer’s varnish printing ability. It takes a lot longer per print that just the colour but they were effective. This is a 0.2mm diameter rivet 0.2mm high. We had effective rivets at 0.1mm diameter. The cost would be more than our standard decals due to the excess printer time. We can print the varnish in multiple layers each 0.04 mm thick. From this experimental print I would suggest no more than 0.1mm high rivets, or even less for 4mm use.

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I will readily admit that Archers rivets would be cheaper, but in the right circumstances our rivets on decal may be of use.
 
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