Hey everyone, I have a few questions. I’m modeling the Nickel Plate in transition era. Rather than pay a couple hundred dollars for the proto models, I lucky enough to come across an old cary body kit for an H10-44 that I threw on an old athearn drive. The trouble is that I can’t seem to find a set of decals for the end striping. Does anyone know if there is a set out there that would work for this? Thanks.
Can’t help you with decals, but the NKP striped paint scheme should be fairly easy to do using paint. After detailing the body shell as required, clean it thoroughly and prime using a light grey. When the primer has cured, paint the entire shell with a suitable yellow. Let it cure for a few days, then mask-off all of the areas you wish to remain yellow.
To do this, first apply strips of wide masking tape, sticky side down, to a sheet of clean glass. Using a straightedge and new blade, remove the factory edges, then use calipers or dividers to mark off the proper width for the stripes. To keep the proper spacing, both from the walkway and from one another, cut the first strip the proper width for the black area between the walkway and the bottom of the lowest stripe, then cut the lowest stripe, followed by the next black area, then the next stripe, etc. Apply the tape in the same manner: bottom black area first, then the lowest stripe, black area, etc., etc. When all of the stripe areas have been covered by tape, remove the tape from those areas which need to be black. Burnish the edges of the remaining tape to seal them, then spray with your choice of black. As soon as the paint has dried to the touch, remove the remaining tape, revealing the previously-applied yellow. To prevent the tape from lifting the yellow, peel it back on itself at as sharp an angle as possible - this lessens the strain on the paint.
These locos aren’t Nickel Plate, but the NKP was my inspiration for the paint scheme, applied as outlined above. (The lettering was done the same way, using dry transfer alphabets to create the lettering on the yellow paint. After spraying the black, bits of masking tape were used to remove the dry transfers, revealing the painted-on yellow lettering.)
[IMG]http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/doctorwayne/locomotives/Freightcarphotosandlayoutviews011
Those look amazing. I’m not sure if I have the patience/skill to paint them myself, but it doesn’t sound all that hard. I may try this myself. Thanks a lot. Great tips and great photos.
For 12 bucks or less, Microscale sells a large collection of decals for NKP. I don;'t recall if the H10 is in there, but GPs from 7-30 and Alcos from the RSs and S engines on up are, so between the lots, the chevrons and side stripes you need should be in there. (That is you can do one or two of each, not pick one or two. There’s enough I can do multoiple Business cars, two GP7s, some PAs, extra tenders for a certain Light Mike that has survived, and still have extra.)
A word of caution, there’s two diffeent shades of gold. The one that looks BRIGHT butter yellow on the paper is the better one for most diesels, and the darker Delux Gold that you think should be is much darker.
Put the 1 of the Chevron decals down first. When you decal with these, don’t let them get so wet they come off the paper, but will slide. Then push them off the side of the paper and on the model. When it’[s a 1/3 the way on, hold the end of the decal to the model and pull the backing paper out slowly. Don’t let it rip, or you’ll have the joy of trying to push the seam together. DO stripes the same way, the long way. The Chevrons shoulod have a starter stripe on them. (The GPs do, anyway) line the fiull body stripe up with this by hanging one end of the stripe slightly off the backing paper (same way you started the Cheron) and finagling it on top of the starter. Then slowly pull the paper out from behind the stripes. You’ll want to take a periodic glance along the model to make srue the stripes are rouhly straight, and then fix em once it’s all on and still wet. Then put the other cheron on on top off the body stripes. he stripes are grouped to one decal by engine type, you don’t need to do each stripe or chevron individually.
The link to the Microscaledecals (only shows one page of two)
If you can find a set of Herald King D&TSL Switcher Decals #1261. The D&TSL used the NKP lettering style for their locomotives until the GT takeover in the 80’s. The above mentioned set has the decals you need for the NKP end striping and substituting the NKP name for the D&TSL name.
Rick
@ flashwave: Does the second page have the end striping with 5 chevrons, or 3? After consulting a few resources, the h10’s had end striping with 5. I can’t seem to find an image of the second page.
Hmm. There’s a set of four complete Chevs to one decal with two additional lines to either side, for the back cabs of the EMD switchers. Unfortunately, I;m not sure it’s enough as I don’t know what the back of the engine looked like. There are additional stripe liness that could be cannibalized, which might be better for going over the cab windows anyway (I’m assuming both ends were stripped) and it’s better than buying tow packs for one decal, unless yo really forsee needing a lot of NKP decals.
For that matter, maybe what we should be encouraging (if you don’t have the steadyness to make your own stencil like Wayne suggested) would be to get ahold of some proper width yellow stripe decal shets and make your own…
I don’t know about NKP, but I can tell you it is harder and harder to find decals for older fallen flags and models.
Take, for instance, B&O- very popular, YET microscale only carries one steamer decal set! AMybe that is all that is needed, but I was surprised. I didn’t look for diesel decal sets, but when I searched for B&O all I found was the one set.
Yea, I’ve been pretty hard-pressed to find a decent set. After some more searching, I’ve found a few manufacturers that make sets for road diesels (bodes well for future projects), but no switchers.
I’ve considered using just yellow decal stripes, but that’s some more research to find out the size and angles. Thanks for all the help guys.
Doctorwayne has given you the “perfect” solution, I’ve been painting since the mid 1960s and I learned right away it was a lot easier and looked 100% better to basically paint in “reverse” and “paint” any stripes instead of using decals.
Results are much nicer and “straighter” than decals as well, no “decal film” to contend with and you never have to worry about it peeling.
Give it a try, once you do you’ll never apply another decal “stripe” again.
Mark