Thorpe's trial & error
One or two fictional PO wagons would not go amiss at Swan Hill and a local merchant "Thorpe" has at least one wagon. Now what to do about the livery? The well known problem of printers - whether lazer or ink jet - not printing white suggests that a small signwriter is required... or is it a writer of small signs? So, a thought: maybe I could print outlines onto waterslide transfer film and hand paint the lettering - worth a try? The shading can be printed, black, red or whatever, so that takes away some of the requirement for a steady hand (which I have not got) and sharp eyes (of which I only have one good one). First up then is to design/print (lazer). The lettering is an adapted "font" which has been exploded in a CAD programme back to an editable outline and then adjusted to give a slightly bulkier letershape and shaded. The transfers are printed direct from the CAD programme.
Then cut out and place on the wagon in this case a Slater's kit, more or less ex box:
Then some white paint - actually, it's acrylic ink....the block of ice is the piercing out-saw table made of perspex which I also use to support hand/brush...
then the other side...
And to complete the job, some of the other details and a good deal of dirt:
Like every good experimenter, some evaluation of the resuts is required....well, the sharp eyed will notice that the edges of the transfer film are definately not concealed by the dirt so a thinner carrier film is necessary: somebody will have tried this before and probably sourced a thinner film...get in touch and let me know! Second thing I noticed is that the transfer film doesn't take paint very well, it's too glossy. I sprayed the second side with a light dust over of matt acrylic varnish which improved matters but not that much. A heavier matt coat would help. I intentionally placed the lettering to avoid the lumps and bumps on the wagon side as the carrier film didn't like stretching over the obstructions - I've noticed a few PO wagons show the same disinclination by the signwriter to give themselves a hard time: to that extent, there is some prototypical evidence. Again, a thinner film would perhaps allow the more common approach of trying to paint a letter over a wagon strap and latch - which is pretty daft, if commonplace.
Trial and error- well it was a bit of a trial and there are some errors but running in a train of wagons, it looks passable as a first "go" so I'll leave it at that. There isn't a cripple siding at Swan Hill anyway so it's on the layout or back in the box - I think I'll leave it on the layout.
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