ACF Dome Lounge (Tail-End version) and Coach from Brass Car Sides
I’m going to have to do the red line along the top/bottom of the yellow portion on each of these projects, and was wondering how others have attacked it?
What I’ve thought of:
decal (had fairly good luck with such striping on two CP C-Liners I custom-painted), but I haven’t found a decal set with those stripes yet. MicroScale 87-616 Passenger Car - Yellow & Gray Scheme would seem to work for the Coach, at least, but doesn’t have the stripes, and none of the other MicroScale seemed to have stripes either.
Paint - I’m a little leery of masking/painting such a fine line.
Thin tape overlay of some kind- I figure if it’s over-coated with Dullcoat, that would blend it in/secure it, but I don’t really know a good material to start with.
So, suggestions? I’m sure I’m not the first to try this, so what has or hasn’t worked for others? Thanks,
You might check with MicroMark, a company that puts out a HUGE number of supplies for all modelers–cars, ships, model railroads–. They make a very thin striping tape that can be used for either masking or actual stripes. I believe they make the tape in several colors, including red.
Also, Microscale decals offer sets of striping decals in various colors and widths–at least I remember that they used to–check their catalogue at your LHS–you might possibly be able to come up with one that would simulate the thin red stripes for the UP cars.
Microscale lists 87-110-5 as being stripes, 3" & 4 3/4" wide UP Red. That’s for HO.
I’ve had some experience in using masking tape for striping. It can work quite nicely. The benefits are that it gives you an edge to mask to for later colors and you can get the EXACT color of stripe you want. It’s pretty easy on lightweight passenger car sides, much less so on F unit noses, and pretty negative when rivets are in the neighborhood. It is an option though. When I’ve done this, I’ve cut strips of Scotch Magic Tape for my masking tape.
A thought about using the decals: You’ll have to decide, I think, whether you want the red stripes over the yellow paint or the grey paint–I don’t think it will work too well to hope that your decal will kind of “go down the middle”. The decal isn’t opaque. You could perhaps use more than one to “thicken it up”. I think it would work better in this case to plan on putting the red stripe over the yellow–you’ll get a brighter color. I’ve not done UP striping using decals, though, so this is only speculation.
I am wary of using colored tape for the stripes. I can’t imagine it would ever be thin enough to look good. Also, it might decide to stop sticking–a sad thing. An overspray of clear might help. Or not.
I recommend decals as well. That’s what I ahve used for the striping on Western Maryland fast-freight steam and diesels with excellent results. Champ still stocks stripes in a number of widths.
Thanks for the tip about the Microscale “Stripes” decals. I blanked on searching for them separately earlier when writing the original post, because the CP decals had the stripes on the same sheet. Although I might someday be tempted to try the very thin masking film from Micromark, I think I’ll stay with decals for this project, if nothing else because of familiarity.
Now I’ve just got to get to the LHS and see if he’s got the Microscale UP Diesels stripes decals in stock.
You all are helpful as always. I’ll try to post some pics of the Doodlebug soon- I shot it with the Harbor Mist grey last night, (the whole body, giving the Yellow an undercoat to tone down the roughly-Pullman-green plastic out of which the body was made), and hope to get time to shoot the Armor Yellow tonight. After that, I think it’ll be time to finish wiring everything (Tomar marker lamps on the corners, and Soundtraxx DSX attached to the roof) before I do the decaling and replace the windows.
The Micro Scale UP stripes are probably your best be. If I’m doing stripes that are lighter than the main carbody (GN or SP Daylight for example) I like to paint the car in the striping color and the mask off the stripe pattern. After painting the first color (let’s stick w/ the Dalight and say orange) I let the paint dry THOROUGHLY, leaving the masking tape in place and then mask off the orange, paint the red, mask that off and do the black, then remove all of the layers of masking tape. the big advantage is that you can match the srtiping color (a very light grey called Searchlight grey in the case of the Daylight, Dulux gold w/ the GN, etc.) Besides, it’s almost like unwrapping Xmass presents as a kid when you peel off all that tape! The disadvantage in your case would be the dificulty in getting good coverage w/ the yellow over the darker red.
Have you thought about using a ruling pen from an old mechanical drawing set. I use it to stripe steam and diesel locos. Its adjustable and works very well. It can paint a stripe from 1 scale inch to 6" with no problem. Some even have a “fatter” tip and can paint even larger stripes.
I have a similar need in that I need to apply thin red stripes above and below the windows of my HO Metroliners (as the prototype appeared in the Pennsy and Penn Central schemes)
My LHS, Happy Hobo Trains (Tampa FL), is pretty good about keeping a good amount of Microscale decal sets in stock. He has a big drawer full of them as the store is frequented by plenty of prototype modelers.
1-813-886-5072. Let Kevin know of your situation and what you’re looking for. He’s a prototype modeler himself.