4mm Chris' Trainsets

[Chris Nevard]

It's this stuff here http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk/.Inkjet-Water-Slide-Decal-Paper_151.htm
I've only just started to play about, but for unfitted stock where you have white lettering in a black box it's easy peasy. We only have a cheapo but new printer, but the quality is outstanding.

I knocked up the graphics in Photoshop, and then inserted the file into a Word Doc for resizing, running off test prints onto ordinary paper until I got the size I wanted.

For white lettering on fittted stock you'd need white printer ink, I've not tried that.

 

[28ten]

Ill say no more wonky wagon lettering

 

[BrushType4]

Ill say no more wonky wagon lettering

Sorry for the thread hijack, but Cynric you just posted the 50 thousand post.

 

[Chris Nevard]

10 sheets of clear transfer/decal sheet and an aerosol of the acrylic varnish to waterproof cost around £20. I can do several hundred unfitted wagons with this. I must try out some white printer ink sometime to further expand its usefulness. I think the print quality is even better on this stuff than paper - really crisp and well defined, for a type face which in 4mm is around 4 or 5 points high!

There's no reason why MS Word or Excel could be used instead of Photoshop/Paint/Coral Draw; create a table and type inside, flood the table/cells black and colour the text white. You cannot generally select the point size less than 8pt, but if you type over the size with a smaller one in the drop down box you can go right down to 1pt!

I used Gill Sans, but most sans-serif typefaces like Arial or Helvetica I'm sure will be just fine.

 

[Steph Dale]

It's this stuff here http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk/.Inkjet-Water-Slide-Decal-Paper_151.htm
I've only just started to play about, but for unfitted stock where you have white lettering in a black box it's easy peasy. We only have a cheapo but new printer, but the quality is outstanding.

I knocked up the graphics in Photoshop, and then inserted the file into a Word Doc for resizing, running off test prints onto ordinary paper until I got the size I wanted.

For white lettering on fittted stock you'd need white printer ink, I've not tried that.

I've got a couple of jobs (US loco numberboards for instance) where it might be just the thing required.

Thanks Chris!

Steph

 

[28ten]

What white ink are you using? i thought that was ALPS only

Sorry for the thread hijack, but Cynric you just posted the 50 thousand post.


View attachment 15291

I think it was actually Chris who posted the 50.000th post, I checked before i posted

 

[Chris Nevard]

I have yet to use any white ink, I just used the bog standard black printer ink and followed the instructions on Crafty's website. But I did paint the area behind the black box white so the lettering would show through white rather than wagon grey. The other option would be to use the white decal paper, but I was worried that you might get fine white edges showing at the edge of the transfer where you cut through.

50, 000 whooppee!

 

[JimG]

10 sheets of clear transfer/decal sheet and an aerosol of the acrylic varnish to waterproof cost around £20. I can do several hundred unfitted wagons with this. I must try out some white printer ink sometime to further expand its usefulness

Chris,

Which printer, that has white ink?

[Edit] I see my question was answered while I was composing it.

Jim.

 

[Chris Nevard]

Chris,

Which printer, that has white ink?

Jim.

I don't know, not ventured down that route yet.

 

[Chris Nevard]

And to finish off today, the cats were particularly cute looking on Saturday night, though I'm suire they were only pretending to be asleep seeing we'd been down the pub for far too long when I took this snap of them. The white balance was way off, so a little sepia tint on camera did a good fix!

 

[JimG]

I have yet to use any white ink, I just used the bog standard black printer ink and followed the instructions on Crafty's website. But I did paint the area behind the black box white so the lettering would show through white rather than wagon grey. The other option would be to use the white decal paper, but I was worried that you might get fine white edges showing at the edge of the transfer where you cut through.

I've been thinking of using white decal paper to make transfers of company crests and coach and loco lettering and numbers. I can foresee, as you say, that the main problem could be the transition at edge of the transfers and I was thinking about doing something like a panel with the lining - say for a tender side - and match the main body colour on the transfer inside the lining, and cut the transfer round the outer edge of the lining, which might disguise the cut.

I model Caledonian and I'm thinking of using the large scale, full colour illustrations in Jim MacIntosh's Caledonian livery book as a source for my transfers - with Jim's permission (or his publisher) of course. I'm also having thoughts about dealing with the upper lining on panelled coaches using transfers although I haven't worked out how I might achieve that.

Jim.

 

[Steph Dale]

The other option would be to use the white decal paper, but I was worried that you might get fine white edges showing at the edge of the transfer where you cut through.

I've been thinking of using white decal paper to make transfers of company crests and coach and loco lettering and numbers. I can foresee, as you say, that the main problem could be the transition at edge of the transfers...

Jim, Chris,

It can be done. A mate of mine managed to produce decals for his US short-line by printing black over white paper. For the cab sides he cut them out in panels, but for the tenders he just cut them with a large margin and then sanded the edge of the decal away to nothing (don't ask me about technique - I'm relying on my memory as it is!). So yes, the white edges would show.

The decal itself is then applied part way through the painting process. The edges can be blocked in by hand, or the numbers/lettering splodged with maskol before the final top coats are applied. The result was the closest thing I've seen to a tampo-printed model!

Steph

 

[JimG]

It can be done. A mate of mine managed to produce decals for his US short-line by printing black over white paper. For the cab sides he cut them out in panels, but for the tenders he just cut them with a large margin and then sanded the edge of the decal away to nothing (don't ask me about technique - I'm relying on my memory as it is!). So yes, the white edges would show.

The decal itself is then applied part way through the painting process. The edges can be blocked in by hand, or the numbers/lettering splodged with maskol before the final top coats are applied. The result was the closest thing I've seen to a tampo-printed model!

Steph

Thanks for the information. It makes it worth continuing further down the road with white decal paper. I can see the possibilities of using panels to do things like complex lining on loco cab sides as well as lettering and numbering. I'm still trying to think of a way to use the decal paper for coach panel work. The Caledonian had a thin gold line round its coach panelling and it would be nice to do that using a computer and not by hand.

Jim.

 

[Chris Nevard]

Hi guys!

Not been on here for a bit, too much charging about. But with Railex at the end of May I've needed to pull my thumb out with Polbrook Gurney Colliery...

A few progress snaps taken on watever was to hand; camera mobile and a short vid to show it works. All shots grabbed within the last couple of weeks. The ones with lots of orange Das clay were taken yesterday - obviously a work in progress as I'm sure you'll understand.

The backscene is a 7 x 2ft print on 2mm Foamex shoehorned in. Before it was dropped into the case I could outdo Rolf Harris on the whoopa whoopa noise front...

Vid

 

[Ressaldar]

Somehow just pressing the 'Like' button seems utterly inadequate.....

+ a lot more than one

 

[Steve Cook]

Very nice Chris, are you going to have bird song as per the video when exhibiting?
I hope so, it would certainly add to the image / ambiance you're establishing.
Steve

 

[Chris Nevard]

Thanks for all the nice comments!

Bird song is a thought, I've rather too much on my plate in time Railex for that though, with just 7 or so weeks to go. I imagine an iPod could be wired into a couple of old external computer speakers. Overly noisy TMD or US themed DCC layout - not sure which is worse. There's even one out there with country music all day long; next time if it's near me I'll wave the 'have you got a public performing rights license'.

 

[Phill Dyson]

There's even one out there with country music all day long; next time if it's near me I'll wave the 'have you got a public performing rights license'.

Oh dear........you have my deepest sympathy's

 

[Heather Kay]

I mixed an FX track for the time Wouldham Town was shown at York. It was about five minutes long, and run on a continuous loop. I'd balanced it so there were country sounds at the "country end" and traffic and shunting sounds at the "town end", feeding a cheap pair of PC speakers spread out under the layout and pointed towards the centre.

It was generally lost in the hubbub (and sound-equipped 7mm layout across the hall), but it was nice occasionally to see a member of the public cock their head to one side if a particular sound caught their ear.

 

[Steve Cook]

Subtlety works best when it comes to ambient sounds, especially if you can create a sound stage i.e. reasonably well defined LH ad RH channels with associated speaker placement. I used free samples for the sound of the sea waves and different seagull calls on Dungeness, all played through a cheap mp3 player and a pair of portable speakers. Total outlay was @£20 at the time, would be more like £30 now. My brother mixed up the sea and sound of one seagull on the RH channel and a different seagull sound on the LH channel. Set up as a one minute loop, I simply filled the mp3 player up and just let it go. Both of us fancy trying to use 5.1 surround sound to create a more immersive atmosphere but its very much a work in progress.
As for getting the sounds drowned out, that depends a lot on the type of exhibition and location within it, my experience was it helped to draw people into the scene and if the background noise was rather high, as per Heather's post, it was nice to observe that something had caught their ear (although in the case of Dungeness it was often the whiff of seaweed which generated a nose twitch kind of response ).
Sorry Chris, back on topic now, hope you get the chance to have a play soundwise after Railex...
Steve