Mountain of an adventure with custom vinyl stick on letters

And here's some results on a building.

 

 

I just found this thread with Zett's latest post.  The lettering on the National Hotel looks great as does the whole model, Zett!

 

I used decals decades ago in HO and N and hated them.  This looks like something I can do with acceptable results.  This weekend, I acquired an MTH BL-2 painted for the Florida East Coast in a trade with a friend.  It is a fine looking model but doesn't fit in with all my drab steam era equipment.    I plan to repaint it someday for Western Maryland, as they bought some, and I am an Appalachian modeler.

 

Thank you everyone for the great examples and comments.  Thank you Lee for bringing this to our attention.

That looks great, Zett.

 

Really good.

Looks very good!

 

I have come to view decals as, well, just not as good as this thin vinyl stickers.  I posted pictures I did of four of the CCB&GC locos this weekend.  I used pre-packaged vinyl lettering on them and it looks good, too.  Stick-on vinyl is the only way for me, from now on.  

Lee did you apply a coat over the vinyl after you put them on?

i have decided that I am not happy with how the vinyl covers rivet detail, at least with smaller pieces of vinyl. If you have a large vinyl I think it works, but with small details it just doesn't look as great as it should. If you open the two photos below and zoom in on the Chicago Outer Belt Line logo, you can see where it just looks off. I really looks good most of the time but if there is light from above, it highlights this imperfection. Of course my bar lights make this a problem. I still think this is the best option for me so I am going to look into removing the rivet detail where the logo is applied.

 

 

This is a great thread with a lot of good information/ideas.

 

Thanks,

Alan

The rivets are annoying.  I found that if I put them in place, push them down 'til they are firmly in place everywhere but around the rivet, and then use a very narrow brass tube, inside diameter just about the width of the rivet to push the vinyl down around the rivet, the vinyl will stretch and hold - at least well-enough to satisfy me.  Frankly it seems to do as good a job as decals do over rivets.  Not easy sometimes, I ruined one letter and had to re-do it before getting the technique down.

Vinyl lettering is actually very practical and as demonstrated by the author of this thread, really quite nice when applied in this particular hobby. I used it for modeling German Tanks and some German WWII aircraft. Though it sometimes took great effort to get that right look/appearance. Especially when one wants something to look realistic.

 

Anyway, I like the photos Lee put up and it shows the sort of creativity that attracts me to this hobby.

 

My compliments.

 

Pete

Thanks for the suggestion Lee I will try to get a tube to try to work the rivet areas.

Just curious if anyone has any new projects using these.

I'm thinking of ordering some of the "stencil" font for a project.

I am still using them, including some that came with that first batch.  I've noticed that those got a bit difficult to use while sitting on the shelf nearly ten months.  they tend to refuse to transfer smoothly more often.   I ruined two complete sets of "AT&SF" before getting it right. In the future I will order only what I need so I have them fresh. 

My original unused sets are still fine, but I keep them in a flat Rubbermaid container.  I placed a new order.  Stencil decals have been hard to find so I'm excited to try the vinyl version.  Yeh, they are cheap enough to ship, and he fulfills orders quickly, that just ordering what you need is convienant.

 

Im curious to see how the maroon vinyl matches some paint I have, so I ordered two strips of it in my road name.

Lee,

   Thanks for starting this Vinyl thread, I have been interested in making my own WAG

Wellsville, Addison & Galeton logging skeleton Cars and some smaller Box Cars, for a while.  This looks like the vinyl transfers I need to accomplish that custom work, thanks much for the great ideas, on how to accomplish it. 

PCRR/Dave