How hard is it too....

T

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
Apr 14, 2006
4,073
0
36
35
Rancho Santa Margarita, Cali.
put new #'s on cars? I am going to have tons of cars with the same #'s and I don't want that. For example I will be having 8-10 of the 50' CNW boxcars made by Walthers in N scale,
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and they don't come in any other road #'s besides the one.

I also already have this problem in my HO cars too with covered hoppers and gondolas.

How do you guys deal with this problem? Can sombody tell me how to change the #'s so they are different for all the cars?

Thanks in advance:wave:
 
Not too bad if your patient. I did this with a few locomotives and cabooses. The numbers were painted on. I tried to remove with alcohol but it didn't work, so I decided to patch over them. After I masked it all off and sprayed it, I decided that I didn't like it so I wiped it off. I was suprised to see that the paint itself took the numbers off. (Was using enamel paint, I recommend using acrylic paints!!!)
Or you could patch the area and renumber it with decals. I've had great luck with Microscale and Oddballs decals. You have to be a little more patient with oddballs, but I have been using some pretty old decals from them. I love them though!

I guess in the end it depends on if your numbers are printed on or painted on. I'm sure someone on here has a better way than what I do, but it works for me and looks great.
 
its easy. paint thinner will take out anything, just be careful. its how i ruined the decal on my Enjay plastics hopper from bachman. just rybbu the number in pain thinner with a microbrush or a tissue until the number comes out. you probably won't rub the paint off unless you site a while longer.

from there, you can get decals.

even better, take a fine paintbrush and turn 3s to 8s, or 5s to 6. not hard to do at all!
 
Thanks guys, I am going to try these methods out.

I just ordered some N scale boxcars from Walthers a few minutes ago, 6 CNW boxcars and 2 GBW boxcars. I have 2 CNW boxcar and 2 GBW boxcar so that makes 8 CNW and 4 GBW of the same boxcar and all the CNW's have the same #'s and all the GBW's have the same #'s too :curse: :rolleyes:

I will be fixin them as soon as I get em' :D :D
 
Eh, I run the same numbers on rolling stock all the time. It used to get on my nerves but after awhile and no one noticing that they matched I just decided to let it ride.
 
65GASSER said:
Eh, I run the same numbers on rolling stock all the time. It used to get on my nerves but after awhile and no one noticing that they matched I just decided to let it ride.
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hhmmmmm, good point, maybe I will leave the N scale cars alone, those are harder to tell, but then again, in pics, you will notice:oops:

I will deffinetly be changing the HO cars and locos though. IDK why, but I just can't seem to have anything with the same #'s on them. :D :rolleyes: :D
 
The main reason why you would need to change the numbers would be if you use a prototypical operational scheme where you spot cars by their numbers. Otherwise the only reason to change numbers is asthetics. One trick to use is to heavely weather a car with a lot of rust or grafitti, and then mask off the numbers and put in a paint patch. Then add new numbers from decals. That is a common method used by the prototype who don't repaint cars between rebuilds, but will patch and paint on new numbers because they use the numbers to identify the cars and don't want any mistakes due to unreadable numbers.
 
Trucklover, try a simple pencil eraser. It usually will remove the lettering from models, but not the paint. I've removed the lettering from Athearn cars and MDC locomotives with that simple trick.
 
nkp174 said:
Trucklover, try a simple pencil eraser. It usually will remove the lettering from models, but not the paint. I've removed the lettering from Athearn cars and MDC locomotives with that simple trick.
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Yeah that works well too! I don't know how I forgot about that.
 
nkp174 said:
Trucklover, try a simple pencil eraser. It usually will remove the lettering from models, but not the paint. I've removed the lettering from Athearn cars and MDC locomotives with that simple trick.
Click to expand...

...and to that add a puddle of Micro Scale Decal Setting Solution for the tougher ones. It won't hurt the paint and can be easily controlled.
 
I removed all the lettering from a P2K Gondola using letterset decal setting solution and a pencil eraser on my motor tool. I spun the eraser fairly slow to keep it from 'burning' through the paint but it worked well in the end. Just removing 1 or 2 numbers on a car you wouldn't have to go to the extremes that I went to and use the motor tool but it works if you're working with larger decals.
 
WOW, thanks guys for all your help, I didn't know that there are so many methods out there for taking the letters off. I am going to mix all these ideas up with all 12 cars so that way I they will be all diff. :D :D :D

Thanks again for all your help.
 
How to make it easier: send some of the HO cars to me!sign1 I need some boxcars, just found out that the boxcars i had were really refigerated reffers (I always DID wonder why they'd advertize posicle on a boxcar:oops: )
 
CNWman said:
How to make it easier: send some of the HO cars to me!sign1 I need some boxcars, just found out that the boxcars i had were really refigerated reffers (I always DID wonder why they'd advertize posicle on a boxcar:oops: )
Click to expand...

sign1 sign1 I have the number problem with N scale boxcars and other rolling stock, not HO for the most part.

As for reffers, I only have one, a 60' UPFE. I like that one, I want to get a few more and some BNSF or BN ones too
 
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