I had a lot of good advice like this when I bought a dozen Walthers Mainline passenger cars and spray painted them with Tamiya acrylics before decaling. I had never used an airbrush before, but I bought an inexpensive compressor and airbrush at Harbor Freight, and it worked just fine. Good suggestion, stix.
Rich
⌠
âŚJust the good olâ boysâŚnever meaninâ no harm⌠
Continuing the discussion from Mortal Fear of Applying Decals:
Many good suggestions here on techniques used for decal application. When a modeler starts painting and decaling, I have my âThree Pâsâ for accomplishing such: Patience, Practice and Perseverance. 
I appreciate all the tips and suggestions. My plan, as I stated before, is to try decaling a box car. I will gloss clear coat the entire model, apply the decals, gloss clear cost again, and finish with a flat clear coat. Consider that phase one.
Phase two is applying car number decals to my Waltherâs passenger cars. As you may already know, the Waltherâs passenger cars do not come numbered but includes decals to number the cars. And this is where I have questions. As these are all new cars with Waltherâs factory paint job, do I have to apply the gloss clear coat or can I just proceed with applying the decals and sealing them with a flat clear coat. Has anyone numbered their Waltherâs passenger cars? How did you proceed? Did you dissemble the car or just mask the windows?
I have watched several YouTube videos on decaling, but I am surprised nobody shows how to apply the number decals to the Waltherâs passenger cars.
Once again, I appreciate all your helpful hints.
When I did my repaint and decaling on the Walthers Mainline unlettered cars, I airbrushed right over the factory paint and then decaled over the dry paint.
Numbering the cars with decals is the same process as with lettering and symbols. But, the challenge is alignment. With the proper tools and liquids, it just takes more time and patience. Once again, it makes sense to practice on a test car.
With regard to disassembling and masking, it depends upon which Walthers car you are working with. In my case, the Walthers Mainline passenger car came with a removing roof and window assembly, so I did remove the roof and windows to paint. On other Walthers passenger cars where the windows are secured in place, masking is necessary.
Rich
deleted
I have not decaled Walthers passenger cars on the factory paint specifically.
But as posted above, I have decaled directly on a number of factory finishes from various brands.
I say go for it.
Sheldon
No reason for the second gloss coat. Spray gloss coat down, add the decals, seal in the model with a spray of flat finish. The gloss first coat is to provide a smooth surface for the decals. Once theyâre in place, you donât need to spray it twice to seal in the decals.
However, I do sometimes add an extra coating of flat to do weathering with powdered charcoal (you can get it at an art store). Gloss coat first, then decals, then seal decals with flat finish. Apply powdered charcoal weathering, then when it looks right, seal in with another spray of flat finish. Unlike say chalk weathering, the powdered charcoal doesnât disappear when you hit it with the flat spray, and itâs sealed in so doesnât come off on your hands when handling the car.
Of course, you can then add weathering powders or a paint wash over the final flat finish.
For the Walthers cars, youâre likely going to want to disassemble the cars to add passengers anyway, so you can remove the windowsâŚprobably. Sometimes theyâre glued in very firmly, and it ends up being easier to mask them off than to risk breaking them. Iâve even had one where removing the window inserts actual bent a door on a combine car.
Only cars Iâd be hesitant to spray (to seal in decals) has been their metal surfaced cars that represent stainless steel pretty well. Iâm worried that the flat spray would dull the stainless steel appearance, and a gloss coating would just make the cars look wet.
OK, I did a test decal application on an old Athearn box car. I am about 90 percent satisfied with it. I think I should have hit it one more time with the Micro-Sol and left it overnight before applying the Dull Coat. Nevertheless, this was a good learning experience for me. Thanks again for all the tips and encouragement.
One more question. My next effort will be to number a passenger car. Rather than totally disassembling it to remove the windows I am thinking of just masking the entire car from just below the windows to the roof. I will then apply the decal without first applying a gloss coat and after the decal is in place and dry I will hit the bottom half of the car with dull coat. Does this sound like a feasible approach?
But donât worry, you got it exactly where you wanted it.
Now, stick the film perfectly on the vertical scratches. Apply a softener (Micro Sol, Solvaset, Mr. Mark Softer, Modelerâs Decal Fit, etc.) to the film. Leave it overnight without touching it, and you should see the changes.
I forgot to mention that you should keep the room temperature above 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then come back here and show us the results. Letâs move on to the next step.
I agree with this advice. You want to remove the silvering in the grooves.
Rich
It looks pretty good. You could consider it âgood enoughâ. In the future, though, leave it overnight as you did here, then decide if another application of Micro Sol is needed before moving on to the Dull Cote application
Rich.
The other option is to practice sticker placement on cheaper cars⌠I used to do similar with different approaches to weathering cars. I only used a few to conclude less is more. Some of the cars are overly weathered but based on what I saw in real life, I was not too far off reality.
Hello All,
A thoughtâŚ
I too modeled 1/35th-scale military models in my teens; early 1970s.
My first attempt was a Sherman Tank.
I used Testors glue in the tube.
The finished model looked like it had been covered in spider webs because of the âstring effectâ of the glue.
Despite that, I was proud of my accomplishment.
I learned to apply decals to those models with the âtoothpick and Xacto knifeâ method.
The toothpick was used to pick up and position the decal(s) and the tip of the #11 blade was used to pierce the inevitable bubbles.
If the decals were not perfect, I didnât care- -I had done it!
As âadultâ modelers we fear imperfections to the point of âanalysis paralysis.â
Check out this threadâŚ
Did or Do Paint Shops Make Mistakes?
Hope this helps.
They did not do as many as me.
Did I do many good ones? No!!! 
David
Definitely the way to do it. 
Rich
What I do on woodside cars like this is do a couple applications of Solvaset or whatever you like to use over a day or two. Once itâs as âsnuggled downâ as itâs going to get, take a single-edge razor blade and slide down each groove between the wood boards. Do that over the entire decaled area, then put on another application of Solvaset. Changes it from looking like a car with a decal to a car with painted-on lettering.
Oh me too, same timeframe. Globs of Testors on everything I touched. Especially airplane canopies. If only I knew then what I know now.
