I am planning some passenger car upgrades which include new paint. Who has separated the window stripe from the body color with a decal stripe rather than trying to (airbrush) a .060 stripe with paint/masking etc., and what are your experiences and advice? Thanks- Mike
Sandusky, I’ve applied stripes before using paint and decals.
For a stripe that narrow, I prefer to use a good quality decal.
But first, can you give us some details as to what you’re working on? HO? N? Is this a prototype railroad or are you freelancing? Is the car streamlined? Heavyweight? Smooth sider or corrugated?
If you’re freelancing, Microscale does make some nice generic decal stripes of varying widths and lengths. Take a look here: http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?
but without knowing what it is you’re doing specifically, suggestions may tend to be generalized.
My experience is to leave as much of the decal film around the stripe as possible, making for a wider strip that won’t be as liable to be crooked on the car. I will also pick up the car and sight down the length to check for the decal’s straightness before applying setting fluid. Since B&O passenger cars have up to four 1" stripes per side, I have gotten very good at putting these on!
Greg
I’ve used both decals and dry transfers to add striping for colour separation or merely for decoration. For many applications, decals are easier, as dry transfers allow only one attempt - get it wrong, and that stripe is not re-useable. [banghead]
This diesel was striped using decals (meant for a different loco) and lettered with dry transfers:
This passenger car was lettered and striped using dry transfers:
This locomotive cab and tender was lettered and striped using dry transfers as a masking device:
First, the cab and tender were painted white, then dry transfer alphabet sets were used to create the roadname and numbers. This was followed by the application of dry transfer striping of a suitable width. The dry transfers should not be burnished after application, and it doesn’t matter what colour they are , as they’re used only as a masking device. Next, the cab and tender are painted in their normal colours (I used Floquil paint). As soon as the paint was dry to the touch (I cleaned the airbrush, then proceeded), I daubed at the lettering and stripes with the sticky side of a bit of masking tape, lifting the dry transfers and revealing the white paint beneath. Replace the tape as it becomes covered, until all of the dry transfer material has been removed. As with masking tape, there may be some areas that will require touch-up - use an appropriately-sized brush to do this work. The running board edges, incidentally, were done with a brush.</
Being a free-lancer, I designed my railroad’s paint scheme so that the paint colors on passenger cars or diesels were separated by a gold stripe. This has the advantage of hiding any slight problems with the masking tape not leaving a perfect line. I use Virnex “no need to trim” decal stripes because…well, you don’t need to trim them (except to length). They’re made with no clear film on the sides of the stripes. With repeated dousing with Solva-set, the stripes snuggle down until they look like they’re painted on.
I didn’t do passenger cars, but I have done stripes on the walls of subway stations.
The front-facing wall of this pillar was done entirely with a decal. The side-facing wall was done with paint, brushed on as carefully as I could. As you can see, the decal gives a much sharper, better-difined line. These were home-made decals, by the way, so I would expect an even better result from professional decals, as there wouldn’t be so much “bleeding” at the edges.
The one I most anticipate some difficulty with are Erie two-tone green streamlined passenger cars in HO; I may also try Lackawanna grey and maroon streamlined passenger cars. Tiny stripes above and below the windows!
Champ offers decal stripes in various colours and in widths as narrow as 1/2" in HO scale.
As an aid for aligning decal or dry transfer stripes, use a divider set to a nearby reference point, (roof eave, sidesill, rivet lines or battens, etc.) or cut masking tape to a suitable width and apply it near the area to be striped to use as an alignment guide (not as a mask, so don’t apply it where the decal or transfer will come in contact as it’s applied - if it does, you’ll remove all or part of the stripe when you remove the tape [banghead]). Also, as Greg suggested, sight along the length of the car frequently as you work - your eye will easily detect any crookedness or misalignment.
Wayne