Decal help needed!

Ha Ha! You said Z scale and easy! Just kidding. I have tons of N scale stuff and have run into problems like yours. There is no easy way that I am aware of. If they are decals, here is what I have done. Get a magnifying visor with the little extra magnifier mounted on the outside, get a good lamp(I use a little metal lamp with a flex neck and a 13 watt soft white CFL bulb), cut them out individually and take your time applying the letters. It is tedious, but the simplest way. Another way which I will be trying on my upcoming lettering project is to apply the letters to Microscale clear decal sheet and coat with Microscale decal film. That way you can do all of the hard work on the decal sheet then cut it out and apply it to the model. I just did a couple of Atlas N scale flat cars with TTX lettering and it almost drove me crazy. It took a few hours, but in the end it was worth it.

I repainted my Con-Cor J3A in NYC a year ago. Luckily Microscale makes a sheet for it in N.

Easiest and better idea. Here is a picture of my N scale tender next to the decal sheet. There are smaller font words on the sheet. It looks to me like one of them could work on a 1:220 model. If you are interested, I could cut out some of the smaller words and numbers that I would never use and mail them to you. Let me know. Click on the picture and you will get a larger version that is easier to see. If you would rather purchase the sheet yourself, it is MicroScale #60-78.

 Get a REAL BIG magnifying glass and a tiny pair of tweezers  

I have microscale HO extended bold Gothic letters and numbers in white. They are the smallest available at my LHS. The smallest are indeed very tiny and it is hard for me to imagine anything smaller. If yours would be more suitable I'd like to get a look at them. It is for my multi gauge train display. Thanks for your reply.

I think they would definitely work for your application. The decals are continuous for each word set. All you will have to do is cut out around the group of words you need and apply it to your loco. No need to cut out and place individual letters. If you look at the cut-out area, those are the decals that I used for my Hudson, which is 1:160. There are three smaller fonts on the sheet and they are naturally correct for NYC as this is a decal sheet made specifically for NYC steam locomotives.

I am going out of town for a week and I'm leaving tomorrow after work. If you give me your address, I will send them when I get back. My e-mail is in my profile.