Making signs for ROW

Mike, I think your example in the photo looks good! Looks like a real station/location sign to me.

Rusty

It looks good from here too!

Probably several members who can help with the others. I never tried any of these yet.

Thanks for the response Joe and Rusty.  I feel like the sign looks like paper rather then a sign.  I re did this last night with thicker card stock, and blackened the edges with a marker.  I think it is better, but still could be improved.

Thanks,

Mike

Have you thought of possibly laminating the signs to provide them with a glossy finish and making them thicker and stiffer?

 Go to. www.blairline.com.  And look for o scale signage. They offer a a sheet of various ROW signage printed on thin styrene. You just snip out the ones you need and glue them to the supplied mounting post. They are very thin and scale like and will hold up much better than anything paper related.

I would print on premium matte paper and the glue to card stock with 3M 77 spray adhesive trim and then blacken edges. This will give you premium quality print and a very good thickness. The 77 adhesive is nice as it dose not cause the paper to curl or warp.

Dave

As others have said I think they look nice as is. Also, as suggested above I think they may be improved by gluing to a strip of thin hobby wood, styrene, thin foam board, etc. Not sure how thin you can get foam board though? And I am not that familiar with card stock, but maybe that too. Michael's or Hobby Lobby would probably have most of these things and probably more.

Maybe a label maker would make suitable signs? Might be easier to attach to a backing material with the sticky on back already applied? I have a Brother labeler that comes in handy for a lot of things, although I have not tried it for making any layout signs. There are also many different sizes and colors of labels and text available. Bad part of this, the labeler is like razors & blades or printers & ink. The refills cost more than the label makers themselves!

  Brother lable makers are pretty cool. It's a clear or colored rectangle/square sticker without some work though.  I don't recall what the smallest font or tape size is but they are kinda nice. Smooth, shines; more like painted steel.

  I think a high gloss paper is what I'd try using.  Your possibly seeing paper grain and that could be part of the real issue; it should not have graining. It should be smooth and flat as can be.

  On some thinner papers your background color could possibly effect the overall tone light or dark or a color tint. So if you're getting a washed out look to overlay lettering, you either have to darken the whole base background, or do some loose fill color on the base surface , by hand to help darken it.

  For a surfaced wood edge I’d laminate and then trim at a beveled angle with new exacto blade and straight edge; so the face is ever so slightly smaller than the back, then use brown edges. Metal I'd cut for90° edges and use black and or silver edges. It would be hard to align the precut paper and get nice flush edges and no "step" at the papers edge. I consider a burnishing roller my buddy for laminating; from graphics to countertops

Mike your signs look fantastic! And I appreciate your effort and concern and wanting to improve them and make them look as good as you can. However, you may want to consider what they look like in real life. Working for the railroad you know. How many signs have you seen out along the right away that look perfect? Everyone I have seen is really beat up weathered dented Etc. You may want to consider a more realistic look??? I don't know whether you're that concerned with a realistic appearance or if you just want to make it look like a museum quality model?  Your call.  :-)