Finally, Decals for The Masses

After several weeks of trial and error I think I've made a real advance in producing decals. There are a ton of variables that had to be tested but in the end it was probably more serendipity than anything else. Here's what I came up with....

The Photo EZ emulsion film seems to work the best of the different brands I tried. The High-Res works great for this application.

I used transparencies for ink jet printers. I had to print the same image twice on the same transparency twice to make it dark enough to work properly with the emulsion.

I tried various artificial lighting but sunlight works the best (and cheapest). Circuit Bridge has a list of suggested exposure times. I found they were too short. Rather than the 20 or seconds recommended I left the film exposed for almost a minute. Anything less left the film underexposed which means the entire piece of film disolves in the developer (clear water) and washes down the drain.

Between the double printed image and the exposure to sunlight I was able to produce a screen where even the smallest lettering was clear and usable.

Leave the film in the water for at least 15 minutes. Rinse it with clear water. I use a drop or so of Dawn dish detergent and gently rub the film with my fingers to loosen up the unexposed emulsion.

Once the screen is rinsed leave it dry in the open air and light....

Latest Screen

The screen I created ended up being a negative which is not what's needed. You should be able to read the text in the normal fashion.

I use screen printers ink. It is very thick so it doesn't flow easily. I use it at this consistancy with no thinner of any kind

The screen should be placed with the emulsion side up. I fasten one edge down with some scotch tape and make sure the screen is flat before taping down the opposite edge. I use a brush to pile some of the ink at the edge of the screen and then I use a plastic or rubber squegee to spread the ink. I apply slight pressure and holding the squeegee at an angle I move slowly across the screen...

Best Yet

This is the first print where the lettering around the logo was visible. It's also possible to read the small class numbers and reporting marks. The sample shown here is actually meant to be used with the CNJ diesel set I'm creating, so it will eventually require colors. For freight cars and such the white lettering is just fine. I was able to reproduce these results on clear decal paper. I forgot, however, to spray a coat of clear to seal the decal and the ink washed off. The label says the ink is permanent on metal paper, etc. Maybe I didn't let it dry long enough. I made another decal and sprayed it with a clearcoat. I'm still waiting for it to dry. I tried to get an image and had to play with the contrast a bit so the white showed better against the white background. This is a clear decal with a white paper backing...

Actual Decal

At this point I'm pretty confident that useful decals can be made with this process. The costs of materials is pretty low. All that is required is Photo EZ sheets, screen printing ink and clear decal paper. There may even be a way to print directly on the nodel itself. Haven't tried it yet.

Another observation I have comes from working on the CNJ units. The test unit I did came out great. The "real" units did not...

Test Unit Left, Ruined Unit Right

The reason seems to be the masking tape I used. I switched to Testor's tape and that was a mistake. I should have stayed with the Tamiya tape. The Testor's is too stiff and will not conform properly to the contours of the model. As a result there is quite a bit of overspray. This is not an issue with Tamiya...

Tamiya: Good

Testor's: Bad

I tried to salvage the models. Stripping them again might cause problems. The shells, especially the Baldwins, are liable to break. So I masked off the blue and resprayed the orange. After that dried I masked off the orange and shot another layer of blue. They came out much better. Not perfect, but passable...

Rescued CNJ Units

Since I believe I'm now able to make the decals for these units, I tried to tint the white ink I have to make the orange and blue. Didn't like the way it came out so I'm ordering two small jars of ink in the appropiate colors. A four ounce jar cost about five bucks.

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad

Diversity

One of the things that makes model railroading such an interesting hobby is the diversity. I'm not sure if there is any other leisure time endeavor that covers quite so many areas of an individuals interests. You can try your hand at just about everything. For my own part this includes quite a few things, including inventing the crazy tools I use.

In the past day or so I've covered quite a lot of ground, interest wise. I started out trying to perfect that turnout I'm building. It's own its third or fourth revision. If I don't like the way it came out I try again. So far I haven't gotten where I want to go. Each time I try, however, I develop new methods and new ideas for the next attempt. The last version was pretty good, but I can do better. One thing I learned was that the NMRA standard for track guage is "sloppy". We can build our track to a much tighter spec. I've been tightening up the tolerances on the turnout and it seems to work a lot more reliably.

In addition to the turnout, I also started the actual painting of the Jersey Central diesels. The new F7 shell is here and I cleaned off the factory paint. I used the Testor's Tangerine to paint all four shells. Trouble is I didn't think it all out. A 1/4 oz bottle is not enough paint for four shells with multiple coats. I had to mix my own tangerine using Model Master "Mango" and Insignia Yellow. The mixture is roughly 1:1...

Jersey Central Diesels

I'm waiting for the paint to dry before I mask the units for the blue coat. The Baldwing units seem a bit light in color, but that's because the plastic they are made from is translucent. Painting the inside of the shell should fix that right up.

I usually run trains while I'm at my workbench and I noticed the PRR L1s was having a bit of trouble. I flipped the beast over and noticed the wheels were dirty. I tried cleaning the wheels with a knife tip but decided that wasn't gonna get the job done. So I took some styrofoam and quickly made a cradle to hold the locomotive upside down. I then took a short section of track, a 6 volt DC wall adapter and chunk of weight from an old HO engine and created this gizmo...

Maintence Cradle/Wheel Cleaner

The weight slips into notches cut in the cradle and holds the track to the tender wheels. This supplies the juice to turn the drivers. At 6 volts the wheels turn at a moderate speed and I can lightly apply the brass brush seen in the photo to the wheels. It only takes a few minutes and the drivers are good as new...

Cleaning Locomotive Drivers

While I'm on the subject of maintenance I found that I need to keep track of what I do. There are some things I may want to remember about what I'm doing on all this equipment. To do this I made up a maintenance log using Microsoft Excel...

Maintenance Log

The main purpose of the log is to keep track of what needs to be done to what item on the roster. Things like couplers that need to be body mounted, weight and wheels to be upgraded, DCC and such.

I also found that one of the Lehigh Valley PA's I recently purchased has a decoder. The locomotive was making a noise and when I took off the shell I saw it had DCC. This gave me reason to pull out another of my weird contraptions, Decoder Central...

Decoder Central

Think of it as a portable workbench for DCC installs. I took a pine board I had laying about for some other project and mounted a length of track on it. I then installed my MRC decoder tester with all it's various clips and connectors. There is some wood pieces to hold motors in place so they can be tested too. I also fastened an Atlas Commander and Generator to the board. The Commander is set up for programming only.

(A brief word about the reasoning behind that, if I may. The Commander has a devestating flaw. The device can be attached to the layout track and a separate programming track at the same time using two different sets of terminals. It cannot, however, actually do this. It will destroy itself. To keep it from doing so an "either or switch" of some kind must be installed. I destroyed my first unit this way. To protect the second one I originally used a DPDT so that the unit cannot connect to both tracks at the same time. When I found one cheap enough I bought this third unit rather than mess about with that. One operates the layout and this one programs decoders.)

Now that I've scared the hell out of everybody who has considered buying an old Atlas system I'll program a decoder.

Unlike current DCC, the Atlas system  can only use double digit decoder numbers. While it would be nice to have the decoder ID match the locomotive it's not a problem for me. On the Average Eastern itself all the engine numbers have only two digits anyway. Out on the Class 1 mainlines I use the last two digits of the locomotive number. Case in point the Lehigh Valley PA I had mentioned. Since the loco bears the number 611, the decoder ID will be 11. Simple enough.

For those who are interested I took some images of the process of using the Commander to change the decoder address. When the Commander boots up it displays the last address it was controlling, in this case #01...

Atlas Commander

To access the programming mode you press both the direction buttons at the same time. This brings up a menu that allows you to access the various functions of the controller. You move through the menu by pressiing the plus or minus buttons. In this case I choose the Pro menu item...

Decoder Programming Option

Pressing F0, the Enter button, selects the programming mode. The Commander displays that it's ready to read register 1 (CV1 in current DCC terms)...

Register 1

Pressing the F0/Enter button again starts the read function...

Read Function

Pressing F0/Enter once more causes the controller to read the current value in register 1, the decoder address, which in this case is 03...

Current Decoder Address

I want to change the address to 11. To do this I hit the plus button until 11 shows on the display...

New Decoder Address

Hitting the F0/Enter button sets the new address. To make sure it works I take the locomotive out to the layout and test it. I have to place on the Average Eastern tracks as the AE is the only part of the layout currently controlled by DCC. I set the layout's Commander to address 11 and crack the throttle...

DCC On The Layout

I'm not sure how the speed steps are set on the decoder, but this is LV 611 moving through the yard at Average

One other thing I did in the last couple of days was work on some scenery. It's not much, but it's a start...

East Portal, Gateway Tunnel

And finally, some train watching...

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad