I have been working with vinyl lettering over the past 10 years or so. But in some cases, like small lettering with black outlines, vinyl isn’t quit as original looking.
Is there any graphics or sign company left that can still make wet transfer decals like those originally put into trolley cars of the 30s and 40s?

I have gotten good results with decals printed with a computer printer. You will need different types of decal paper for inkjet or for laser printers. Go to Google and you can read about the process and have a choice of vendors for the paper.

The only problems that I have had is that the decal paper is stiff enough to cause paper jams in some types of copy machines. The paper must be fed by hand one sheet at a time. In one machine the decal paper regularly jammed after passing through the fuser. Open the machine, remove the jammed paper, and all is well.

I also had some problems trying to print decals in a Hewlett Packard P2015 Laser Jet printer. Maybe I haven't yet found the correct fuser temperature for decals in this machine.

Good luck. None of this is rocket science.

fk

Art Decal in Long Beach California. Anything you want in pressure sensitive to water slide.

http://www.artdecalcorp.com/watertransfer.htm

Thanks Much.
I have never tried the do it yourself method. We need metallic gold with black outline in most cases. I’ll give Art Decal an email and see what they charge.

> But in some cases, like small lettering with black outlines, vinyl isn’t quit as original looking.

If you want something original looking, cut stencils and paint them prototypically. I see so many "preservationists" using vinyl and whatever else they can find in lieu of doing lettering the old fashioned way.

Do the "work". You will be glad you did when you see the results.

WM303, not everything was stenciled or hand painted.

Canadian National, for example, made extensive use of decals for lettering and both wafer and maple leaf monograms on passenger cars, locomotives, and on interior lettering on various types of equipment.

I'm sure many other roads did this as well.

Canada Science & Technology Museum has a nice article on these decals:

http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/e ... strial.cfm

Here is a photo of some CNR decal numbers from the CSTM collection:

http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/e ... gsrc=fig05

As you'll see in this article, the use of decal lettering goes back a long way, particularly where great labour and time savings could be had through the use of decals.

In these cases, if you want the authentic look, decals are a must!

Steve Hunter
RMEO
Smiths Falls, Ontario

http://www.sfrmeo.ca/
http://elliottd.fotki.com/sfrmeo/

...Because, the gold ink used for the gold lettering has flakes in the pigment, just like automotive finish. It doesn't look like dirty yellow "imitation gold" paint, and it doesn't look like gold leaf, either.

Buzz, if the decals don't pan out, take a look at the heralds on CNS&M 714 and 354 (numbers, too). John McKelvey and I painted these on, oh, better than thirty years ago now. The gold is a Cadillac color spray painted over an orange or yellow ground coat.The black outlining was done by a sign painter, but with the versatility of today's vinyl cutters, I don't see why a second mask couldn't be made for the black outline.

Hi

This is a little off topic. I paint my 1 1/2" scale cars instead of using vinyl. The small letters are only 1/8” high. The same shop that cuts the vinyl can cut the paint mask.

Tim

Vinyl has worked pretty well in most cases. I have also hand painted some but our current project requires lettering over wood car siding with a grove between slats. Bob K. mentioned a method of softening a decal to stretch it into the grove. And indeed sanding through the paint proved the original numbers for the car sides was a decal. The file below is from the letter boards that were flat.

Don't know what scale you're into, but I've used an Alps printer for several years in scales HOn3 to G. Alps is the only printer I know of that has white ink. Unfortunately, they are out of production although you may be able to find one on Ebay.

I've only done wet transfer decals, and do not know how the Alps would perform with any other medium.

dan

errrr.... I think he's talking full size. Quite a bit of the gold lettering done on streetcars and some railroad cars was wet decals, although they were applied differently than the water-slide decals modelers use. The large decals used on full size railroad equipment were printed in reverse, so they could be applied with the paper out. That allowed them to be applied over varnish size, like gold leaf, and the carrier paper soaked off after the decal was firmly affixed.

I would suspect the problem with computer printed decals would be the same as using hardware store "rattle can" gold paint for lettering; the color isn't very thick, so it won't weather very well. I've seen rattle can lettering jobs almost totally wash away after only a couple years, and vinyl lettering curl and pull away in less than a dozen. In contrast, the gold decals the North Shore Line was using in the fifties still looked good in the seventies; they held up better than the paint they were applied to. Given the amount of work it takes to paint and letter a railroad car, we need all the longevity we can get.

The problem we faced in replicating them is it was hardly cost effective to have only two decals silk screen printed. Hand lettering with One Shot didn't do the trick, because the decals showed a definite metal flake in the gold that brushable enamels could not, because the metallic pigments were so heavy that they would sag as the paint was drying. Our answer at the time was to spray them with Ditzler DQE quick dry enamel, an automotive finish, but any of the acrylic lacquers available today should do. To do this required hand cutting stencils from sign painter's "frisket" paper, but today's vinyl cutters should make this part of the job a snap.

I understand that then another sealing coat of varnish was applied to seal the application.

Brian,

You are correct, and I should have mentioned the finial clear overcoat. But the fact remains, you can't stick a large decal on a carside with the mucilage typically used on water-slide decals and expect the decals to still be there years later. see the thread "Why did this paint fail" for the likely result. The back of the decal needs adhesion with some sort of waterproof adhesive, which the undercoat of varnish provides.

So the varnish undercoat would need to still be tacky (like gold leaf) when the decal was applied?
Old timers here at the IRM said the wetting agent to remove paper could also be paint thinner instead of water, could that be so?

Buzz,

I was under the impression that the decal was rolled onto the tacky varnish size dry, and then the paper was soaked off with water, the decal film itself keeping the water off the tacky varnish behind it. After the paper was off and the decal dried, then any air bubbles could be pricked and rolled out. I will freely admitt that I've never sucessfully done one. I recall Bob Kutella trying to use an old North Shore Line herald from stock, but the decal was at least twenty years old, and the film broke up.

I'm going to make two statements, which are not meant to start an argument with anyone. Statement number one is I doubt you will find anyone that will make wet decals anymore, no matter what anyone says. Self adhesive vinyl has taken over both the truck painting and window lettering markets, so what is left? Lots of outfits claim to make decals, but the term has come to include printed vinyl.

Statement number two is that if you do find someone who still makes wet decals, they should be able to give guidance for their application, or point you to an old-timer sign painter that knows how to work with them.