Walthers Decals; passenger car names?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi, all

I have built a pretty extensive roster of Walther’s Heavyweight and Streamlined passenger cars. Overall, they are terriffic models and I give Walthers credit for providing pretty accurate car name decals with the cars BUT my several attempts to use these on the car sides is not proving to be satisfactory. Their decal film is rather THICK and my end result looks like a piece of Plexiglas stuck on the car side. I’ve used Solvaset, Micro clear and still have poor results.

I’m sure it would help to spray a coat of gloss in the area of the decal but I’d have to mask the window area and this would be a real pain.

I wish Walthers would provide Dry Transfer car names. These would be ideal as I have used them on other flat (non glossy) surfaces with great results.

Do any of you have any suggestions for a source of dry transfers for NYC and Pennsy passenger car names or at least a better quality of decal for them?

Thanks, ED

2

Worked fine on all my cars.

3

My best results for passenger car names has been with Champ decals of Minot,ND. They still have a large inventory of PRR lettering style and others. After applying according to instructions you do have to spray crystal coat to blend into the car side and hide the decal film.

4

There is a thread somewhere about using future floor wax that may solve the problem. If I can find it, I will post it here.

Rick

5

Thanks, Fellas

I found CDS Lettering in Canada and have ordered dry transfers from them in the past. They have quite a few NYC sets that I will order soon.

http://www.canadasouthern.com/tmr/CDS.htm

I have a set of C&O lettering for passenger cars from CDS and they are very nice with plenty of car names. To me Dry Transfer is the way to go… looks most like painted on lettering. I’ll try to get photos posted this weekend.

I don’t remember the part number but they also make an excellent R X R highway marking for grade crossings that is perfect for roadway marking!

Thanks, ED

6

I found that mounting them to .010 sheet of styrene cut for the decal to fit on it and then mounting the styrene to the car works well.

7

I found that just applying the decals to the side did produce some silvering. The finish has some sheen to it so I thought it would work.

By brushing the Future floor “finish” at the area first, allowed the decal to lay down somewhat better. The film is still a bit thick as you mention, but a coat of finish applied can hide it. The Future is self leveling, so lay car flat and let dry. One or two passes w/ a soft brush (don’t play with brushing unless you applied too much). It will smmoth and feather out on it’s own.

The only trouble is the factory paint is almost a satin finish. Straight dullcoat or gloss doesn’t look right. I am going to mix about 1/4-1/3 gloss finish to the flat and check the results.

I have done this mix in the past for varying sheens to a protective finish. I use Floequil’s flat and glosscoat. For those that don’t airbrush, I can only suggest just mask off the lower portion and spray w/ a can of dullcoat.