Inkjet Decals

[rockislandmike]

A few people have asked me about inkjet decals, and I promised I'd post pics of my AEX hoppers when they were done. Well, here they are. They will eventually transport coal from my mine in Raton NM on the final layout, in conjunction with a whackage of Santa Fe hoppers (I just wanted the "leased" The Andersons hoppers for variety).

I basically looked at the photo of a Tichy car that they did for The Andersons, found the nearest font, and then used color info from a mailing list on freightcars (i.e., green/black lettering on grey), as the Tichy pic was in b&w.

All of these decals were created in MS Publisher. If I need to do a logo, I usually create it first in PhotoDraw (although my graphic artist friend Kim is currently working on a Gauge photo in Corel) and then import it into Publisher. I find Publisher is a good tool to maneuver the decals around to get the best fit. It's also easy to shrink or enlarge them before I do the final printing.

The decal sheets I use are from Bel Decals, the spray I use is high-gloss Krylon acrylic crystal clear (it came with the kit, although I don't believe they are allowed to transport it in the mail anymore).

I'll repost in this same thread after I weather 'em.

 

[rockislandmike]

PS - notice that cause of the camera flash, you can see the decal edges on #153. You can't in real life, and you especially won't after I weather 'em.

 

[Casey Feedwater]

Like Mike, I've also been making my own inkjet decals lately. I am currently using Vita-Cal Graphics' decal sheets and spray fixative. And I just got several sheets of Micro-Mark blanks, so I can make some comparisons between the two brands.

I created mine in Adobe InDesign2, although any word processor would have worked just as well. The font I've been using is called "Stencil" (for obvious reasons).

What I've tried to represent with my decals is the notion of another road's reporting marks having been painted out and stenciled over by the OVT&L after purchasing the car from the original road.

I won't repost the photos here, but if anyone is interested here's the link to the original postings:

http://www.the-gauge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3560