Best Way to Re-Number a Locomotive?

If you have a LHS you're more than likely in luck. You can buy sheets of dry transfer numbers in black or white in most any size or style. The same applies to letters as well.

I second Pappy's recommendation for dry transfers; just cover after installation with a slight spray of Dullcoat and you're done.

I've tried: 

- printing using rubber letters and non-porous ink, paint, etc.  I've seen work other people did using this that turned out well, but it did not work that well for me.

- decals - a pain

- dry transfers are pretty good when they work well, but my experience has been they sometimes will not transfer well of stick wsell to some surfaces, and when they do they are a bit delicate.  Yes, you can overspray the loco with clear but test the transfers first - once in a while the spray dissolves or fuzzes out the letter.  

- I prefer to  buy and use very thin vinyl letters: they stick, look good, and from even a foot away you can't tell they have a thickness.  You can get Chartpak and etc., sans serif down to 1/4" letters and numbers (looks really good on UP) and 1/2' high letters, for just about any font (custom ordered, too, to spell what you want or any #s you want in any font/color). 

- I also hand letter.  Bought some very fine brushes and have most had okay results, but it takes forever.

From response so far, vinyl or dry transfer seem like ideal options.

 

I must ask though, do dry transfers come available easily in specific roadname fonts? I'm looking for numbers used on the Nickel Plate Road.

Depending on the locomotive I had real good luck with a P-Touch label maker using black tape with white letters. Did this on a MTH NYC Mikado and Niagara. And you can remove it also, without damage to the original number or paint.

 

Clem

My LHS has two big plastic tubs of dry transfers - must be several hundred packets there - in various fonts and colors, to match just about any RR, but you have to look through them and know what you are looking for.  

The best way that I have found is to call a professional...

Some further comments:

 

On using vinyl letter.  I have three of for locos where I have used them, applied to the loco, and as i said they look very good and you can't tell they have a thickness unless you are very, very close.  

 

However, sometimes, as on the loco below (Legacy N&W J repainted UP Greyhound) I use vinyl letters and numbers as stencils.  On this J, I applied Chartpak vinyl letters to the loco after I masked for the yellow lines but before I sprayed the yellow on, putting the vinyl letters just where I wanted gray lettering to be when done, then I sprayed the yellow.  Now, the secret (I learned in trials) is to remove the letters, one by one, before the paint dries.  Do it after and you tear the paint edge sometimes.  I used the tip of a #11 X-acto and a lot of patience to remove them without marring the paint.  It's a pain, but all in a good cause.

 

I have also used the vinyl left over - that around the Chartpak letters. as a true stencil.  I could have done that on this J: after the yellow strip was dry and hardened (say three days) I could have removed the actual lette/number I wanter and set it asside, then cut out the area around it and applied that where I wanted the number/letter.  When I do this, I use fine and good quality brush to hand paint it.  The secret to the painting  is to keep only a bit of paint on the brush and dab it on a bit 'dry' - in spite of pushing the stencil down, if you get too much very wet and thin paint on the stencil, capillary action will pull the paint under the edge of the stencil.  

 

 

 

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I have never met an actual "professional" model train painter/numberer: someone who does and always has painted/numbered/lettered locomotives for a living.  I understand there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, in China and such places, but I don't go there anymore and never visited those factories when I did.  I do know that special machinery plays a big role in the lettering and graphics, however.

 

I have met and know well many expert amateurs, all self-taught through study, care, and experience, and some of whom do very good work on a paid basis, usually as a second-career or revenue-generating hobby.  But with all due respect to them, these folks do no better work that you likely could teach yourself to do, particularly with some practice first.  In my view the decision whether to seek out and hire one of these people depends on two things: if you don't enjoy this aspect of the hobby (painting and numbering a loco) then definately hire one of them, and/or the time and effort to learn how to do it well is not worth the trouble to you.

 

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Most of the dry transfers I have seen in LHS and similar stores do identify "Southern Pacific" or "BSNF" as the font and color they fit.  But selection is usually limited, and frankly on many occasions no store had what I wanted.  I would recommend studying what font and color the RR you want used.  There are websites that allow you to check out hundreds of font, but I did this by going to a site that custom makes vinyl letters, and, with a loco right in front of me,  typing in, for example, "SOUTHERN PACIFIC" in their website and then cycling through the dozens of serif-type fonts they have - when you click on the font it shows you "SOUTHERN PACIFIC" in that font - I did that until I found one that looked just like the printing on the loco.  Even if dry transfer and vinyl letters (usually) in all sorts of places besides LHS sources, etc.  

 

The problem with all the custom-sites I have checked so far - they will make you, for quite reasonable fees, any words or numbers in any font, in any color, is the minimum size for letters and numbers for vinyl is 1/2 inch height (for capitals).  I would love to fine one that goes down to 1/4 or 1/8 inch.  

 

However, anyone else, who, like me, models Union Pacific is in luck, the standard vinyl sans-serif font made by Chartpak, down to 1/4 inch, and available in many colors, matches UP nearly perfectly.  

There is no ideal solution. My first choice would be road specific decals but these are becoming harder to find in O scale. With decals the font and size would be correct and you don't have to worry about spacing. The downside is the extra work to hide the decal edge. Dry transfers are good but take more time to get right and rarely match RR fonts. I haven't tried vinyl but would expect sharp edges but with even fewer font choices.

if you had a number of items you wanted to reletter you might want to contact a custom decal maker. Prices are all over the map but if you can find one who has already done the roadname you are looking for it can be pretty reasonable.

 

Pete

Fortunately, I wandered upon www.railfonts.com and they have the font that the Nickel Plate used for their numbers and lettering.

 

And it seems a lot of people have different opinions on the best method, so I think I should find a happy medium of them all. I could do the same method Lee did on the J.

 

The numbering I'm doing doesn't really involve any painting (unless you count painting over the original number), and I will be doing the renumbering in small places like headlight number boards as well as tender back ends where the capacity data is also.

I thought about renumbering locomotives, but after running them for a few years in their original livery, I cannot remember one time where I paid attention to their cab numbers. I also have a concern that renumbering will devalue a locomotive.

 

If I were to renumber a locomotive, I would favor Lee's idea of using plastic characters and second to that, I would opt for dry transfers.

I use MicroScale Decals. Large variety of fonts and colors.

I can understand that, but nothing in the modern era really appreciates in value anyways. Maybe only one drop of water in the modern era ocean will. Besides, once I own a train, it's mine to do whatever I want and get the most satisfaction out of it.

I vote for decals, actually. I've done a LOT of re-letering, and number/letter sets are available here and there - Microscale has them, and Woodland Scenics has number/letter

sets (dry transfers).

 

1 - remove the existing number with fingernail polish/acetone (metal locos only) or sanding film (MTH lettering is typically impervious to acetone).

 

2 - do not use individual dry-transfer letters directly from the sheet; they will never

line up, no matter how you tray to convince yourself. Draw a light pencil line on some plain decal paper (Hobby Lobby, and elsewhere), carefully rub the dry transfer letters on to the decal paper. You have now made a decal, and you have 2 chances to make it straight:

when you made it, and, if you goofed, it can be cut where necessary and aligned/applied

just like any other decal. 

 

3 - use Solvaset and overspray with Dullcote, etc. It's a decal.

 

4 - dry transfers can be nice when applying a large design to the side of a boxcar, for example.

 

5 - vinyl letters, if ner-tern re-positioning is possible, may be good; never used them.