Rub down transfers for wagons

Mike W

Western Thunderer
I model Gauge 3 and one think we lack is a range of transfers for private owner wagons. I've tried waterslide of various makes but even with decalsol/decalset etc, the depth of detail in the larger scale means the carrier film is always visible. Next step is to commission POWSides to make some rub-down transfers but, since they list them as a stock item in Gauge 1 which must have almost the same problem, has anyone used them and can report please?

Mike
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
I'm increasingly obsessed with lettering, especially pale lettering on dark backgrounds, and methods that don't leave a carrier film.

I've looked at dozens of potential 'home brew' methods:

pigments:
  • Laser toners: black, coloured and White
  • Laser Foils including Pulsar Decal-Pro Fx
  • Oils
  • Powders including inert and heat sensitive
  • Acrylics
  • Vinyls, including rub-down and iron-down films
application:
  • Direct or Offset silkscreen (knife or laser stencil)
  • Direct or Offset block printing (knife or laser block)
  • Spray or Brush (knife or laser stencil)
  • Direct or Offset intaglio including Pad Printing
& carriers:
  • Direct to model
  • Water-slide film
  • Heat-sensitive film
  • Transfer films or tapes
  • Laser toner
  • Gumstrip
  • OHP gels
  • Paper
  • Mylar
applied by:
  • Rub-down
  • Print
  • Brush
  • Spray
  • water
  • alcohol
  • Varnish
  • PVA
  • Acrylic liquid / gel / paste
Regarding commercial and bespoke rub-downs:
  • I'd not heard of POW-Sides until today, and I haven't yet found a description of their process. Good Tip, thanks, Mike
  • My friend David Bailey stopped making rub-downs when he could no longer get the consumables.
  • More recently, the iconic Letraset brand has been merged into the Windsor & Newton brand.
You can guess I wouldn't say any of this if I already had a sure-fire solution yet.
I'm happy to share ideas, either here or elsewhere.
All I have are Principles, Rejects, and Google.
My scales range from 1:35 to 1:12.

David
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
An alternative to POWSides for custom rub down transfers is 4D Modelshop in London - 4D modelshop's dry transfer service. It is a long time since I had some produced by them but they were very good, quick turn around and very professional.

Thinking about it, laser cut stencils would probably work well in G3. Real paint and you only have to dab on as much as needed to suit the level of dilapidation of the wagon.
 

simond

Western Thunderer
I did think about laser cutting Mylar film to make stencils for 7mm. I’d envisaged airbrush application of the paint. I pondered cutting the Mylar to fit around and between the stanchions, stiffeners and other body hardware, to get it to lie as flat as possible.

I could imagine this working for 16” G W or similar sized CAMBRIAN but not for the solebar lettering. I’m unsure that the wagon numbers would work in 7mm.

I haven’t actually done anything more than think about it...

Happy New Year
Simon
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
What about frisket film? There's a lot of stuff on line about it so I'll not provide a link.

I bought a roll and use it for masking when spraying. How one would fix it over strapping and fine detail I'm unsure but that'd be a problem for any physical mask, would it not? I'd also think that the cutting of the stencil would be a challenge I, personally, would avoid but only because I suspect I'd not be very good at it!. I bought a small quantity off a roll at our local art supplies to try out and it was very inexpensive so if you have a supplier it may be worth a try. Even a full roll was only in the order of £12 or so.

Brian
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
How one would fix it over strapping and fine detail I'm unsure Brian

Frisket is basically Masking Tape for Artists, being strong, clear, sticky and wide. It allows hard edges because it presses down to prevent seepage underneath.
Supplement it with any mouldable substance that comes away cleanly leaving no residue, and doesn't attack the surface.​

The classic is Liquid Frisket a.k.a. Masking Fluid.
My grandfather, a technical artist, made his own fluid by dissolving bicycle inner tube in lighter fluid (DO NOT try that at home: high a risk of a fireball.) He also used a model oscillating steam engine to puff air through his 'airbrush' which I imagine was originally intended for mouth-power, rather than a sophisticated Badger, Paasche or DeVilbiss.
Other forms of detail-climbing frisket include Cow Gum, Copydex, electrical tape, Selloptape, Post It Note tape and (nearly forgot) decorators Masking Tape (low-tack preferred).

Non-sticky masks can be cut with knife, stencil heat-tool or laser from Mylar (ideal), acetate, card, paper etc. They can be used 'as-is' for soft edges, or stuck down with Repositionable Spray Mount for the hard edges we generally want for lettering.
Even a small low-wattage laser cutter will work, but its Resolution may be cruelly exposed, and edges may be crinkly in some materials.​

Test how best to cut pre-sticky masks, as a laser or heat-tool might spread the adhesive around.
The traditional tools are the scalpel and swivel-knife, these days supplemented by CNC versions using computer artwork.
Stencil-cutter / vinyl cutter / crafter's cutting machine brands include Silhouette and Cricut. (Cricut have a "Maker" model that rotates the knife under power, rather than merely dragging it around, but that doesn't yet have settings for frisket.)
They can't cut as small as a laser because the knife needs room to manoeuvre, but they are comparable in size and price to an A3 home printer.

David
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
Was that for a wagon with strapping and other raised detail? And did they work OK over all the lumps and bumps?

I agree that a stencil is worth trying. I already have some artwork for a few wagons so maybe will just get a set cut and try it.

Thanks.

Mike
I used them for illiteracy symbols and number plates so didn't need them to go over strapping. The transfers are quite flexible and a bit stretchy, very similar to the POWSides version.

I think I will do some experimenting with laser cutting masking tape to see if I can make something similar to the aftermarket canopy paint masks for model aircraft. The low powered laser has very good resolution and the fact that it does not cut clear Perspex can be used to advantage.
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
Good tip, thanks, Richard.

Their page mentions ALPS and OKI dye-sublimation printers:

OKI now do CMYW printers i.e. ones that can print White onto dark paper.

They can also print white transfers, and transfers with a white underlay that give bright colours even on dark backgrounds.
These transfers are mainly used for heat-setting onto garments, which implies Stretchy, and I'm wondering whether they could help us.
The cheapest OKI White-capable printer is still £2 000, but the White toner cartridges have dropped down to only £300. OK this is ten times what I want to pay to make my own transfers, yet IF an OKI printer can make transfers suitable for model railways, it could be worth somebody's while to invest and get busy, even at those prices.
Now, here's a sideways look at white-toner printers.
Chinese websites offer bags of unbranded white laser toner, and I doubt they are just for topping up a pukka OKI machine. So who is using all this white toner, what for, and might it do us some good?
For example, just as China has a cottage-kitchen industry of Grannies beavering away at Pad Printing (as used to print commercial railway models), might there also be a similar cottage industry doing White on Dark printing using ordinary cheap home or office printers?
Cos if there is, we sure need to know . . .​
 
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simond

Western Thunderer
Pad printing, aka tempo-printing. I wonder if it’s reasonably possible in a home setting.

In a previous life we had a row of machines happily putting brandnames on rechargeable batteries for power tools. Really lovely process, very low reject rates, good definition, and accommodating of uneven surfaces. The machines we had were semi-automatic, and far too big, complex & expensive for our needs, but I imagine a simple hinged support for the pad, a cliche, etched with the required lettering, and some form of support for the model.

Might be practical, but it’s a process for repeat printing, so not ideal for, eg wagon numbers

Best
Simon
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
Here's a small hand-operated Tampo machine:

padprinterannotate_bright.png

A silicone pad transfers in from an etched surface to the object on the platen. The ink cup renews the ink for each cycle. For one-off images (or two-off for the sides of a wagon) one could simplify the machinery further.
I'm envisaging a process far more like hand-stamped wallpaper than an automatic industrial machine.
While one of pad-printing's strengths is being able to print on uneven surfaces, it remains to be seen how well it can cover strapping. Flat, probably - angle-iron, maybe not.
So - and again, as with other methods - some touching-up may be needed.
Yes, Simon, each individual vehicle number in a series of vehicles needs its own plate, which may only get used twice (once on each side).
But something similar is necessary in any form of home-made transfer!
I suspect that a one-shot Tampo etch is simpler than a one-shot silkscreened rub-down.
The most satisfactory process for vehicle numbers could well be Offset Litho using laser-printed paper plates. All the numbers one could wish for could be printed in seconds on a single A4 sheet of paper.
But litho - a.k.a. planography (flat-writing) - ain't gonna cover strapping.​
 
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simond

Western Thunderer
Thanks David,

Your machine is very like the ones we had at work, only cute by comparison, ours were semi-automatic, pneumatic and the size of a small fridge!

I see the smell-chequer got me too.

It would, I guess, be possible to etch a cliche with several dozen numbers on, and mask the model so that only the required number was printed. It would be a waste of ink, but not much, I guess. The cliches we used were polished steel, around 5mm thick, and looked expensive. I think for our purposes, we’d want to be able to use the standard brass etch, and as thin as possible, given the very limited use they would get. I guess the minimum size of the cliche depends on the ink pot diameter, there are lots of pads & plates / cliches available, they seem to be about 100 x 200 mm or so for a 95mm ink pot. I haven’t found smaller ones in a quick googling.

The pads were extremely soft, but clearly there is a limit to the height & angle of anything uneven. I’d certainly agree that it would cover flat strapping which in 7mm would only be a few thou thick, but like you, I’d be less confident of it working over an upstand which may protrude more than a millimetre or so.

But since we’re in imagination territory, I wonder how difficult it would be to fit an ink-jet print head onto an x-y-z table, and actually print whatever you want directly onto the model. There are lots of mechanisms, controllers & software available for laser, cnc millers, & 3D printers, so that aspect is relatively easy. This thought led me off down another 30 minutes on the w3 which was inconclusive. I think it’s a “yes, but...”, and I have more than enough of those littering my workshop!

Atb
Simon
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
Simon,
A modern Tampo has closed ink-pot that slides over the whole cliche, filling the whole etch, but without waste.
Earlier ones mimicked the art of the etcher, covering the whole plate with ink and scraping off the excess with a 'doctor blade' each cycle.
So what I have in mind is inking-up just the particular number required for each vehicle.
While a thick steel cliche is great for a long production run, 1mm steel (held down by magnets) is cheaper for short runs.
Steel is not only cheaper than brass, it resists the tiny, yet hard and knobbly, particles of pigment in the ink. (For the same reason, copper printing plates are iron-plated for long runs, electro-iron being very hard, unlike electro copper which is super-soft.)
Brass would certainly work for us at home, if that's what we've got lying around, but then so would sheet steel.​

(Off-Topic note for Non-Printers:
Traditional whitemetal Moveable Type eventually wears out, and then has to be re-set, which is as much trouble as the original typesetting. A book with many pages has many heavy iron-framed Chases of type. Therefore when a type-set book was expected to be best-seller, or when the expensive type was needed for the next job, a cheap papier-mache mould was made of each Chase of type before it got beggared. These moulds were used to cast solid whitemetal blocks, from which another whole printing could be made. English printers gave these blocks a Greek-Latin name: StereoType = Solid Mark. French printers used the distinctive sound the steam makes when molten whitemetal fills a wet paper mould: Kleeessssshhhayeee ! Both words have gained lives of their own outside printing, each reflecting some aspect of Unchangeability.)​

David
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
Simon, when you did pad-priting, do you have a feel for how deep the etches in your cliches were, please?
And what consistency the ink? Stiff, creamy? runny etc? And how quickly did it dry, please?
Thanks, David
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Ah,

I didn’t actually DO it...

What I can tell you from observation of those who did, I believe that the ink was supplied in pots, they had their own “doctor blade” as part of the pot. I do recall seeing the pots changed, but can’t honestly remember much about the ink - quite thick I think, certainly not runny.

The ink dried very quickly, I never saw a print smear.

The operators used a LOT of sticky tape to clean the pads, if they’d stopped for more than a few moments they would need to clean the pad several, maybe many times before the print would be clean, I guess this could be due to ink stuck in the cliche. Once they were running on a batch, they might do several hundred with only occasional use of the sticky tape.

The ink & thinners were stored in a hazchem cupboard, though I don’t know what it was precisely. Flammable, I guess.

The products were abs/pc mouldings in blue, green, black & red, overprinted in white, red & black from memory. Powertool batteries.

Cliches approx 8” x 4” as earlier indicated. Difficult to say how deep the etches were, but I’d guess something less than 0.25mm, maybe 0.1?

Hope this helps...
Best
Simon
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
It helps a great deal, Simon, thanks.
It's definitely something I want to experiment with.

As are these other home methods that also don't leave carrier film on the model:

- Silkscreened rub-downs, like Letraset.

- Direct Toner Litho printing, which probably needs least equipment.

- Toner-Foil transfers, which are probably quickest start-to-finish.

David
 

simond

Western Thunderer
David,

Happy to have helped & following with interest.

There must be industrial applications where a computer-generated (thus variable) print pattern on a 3D surface is needed, over a repeat pattern, makes me think that my suggested multi-axis CNC printer should already exist in some form. It’s clear that date-coding is already a highly-developed technique, however clearly aimed at legibility & cost effectiveness rather than any artistic element, but surely there are products / processes that could be adapted for our needs.

As a first go at pad printing, I’d suggest a simple hinged arm, over some form of turntable (or sector plate) which would support the cliche (manually inked as you suggested) and the model. This would offer a cheap & simple prototype to establish feasibility before splashing out on something more permanent. It might be worth talking to a sports trophy engraver about engraving the first cliches, as they can probably accommodate different depths, would perhaps give a starting point for later chemical etching. Unless you know someone with a pantograph of course!

Atb
Simon
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
Some years ago a friend of mine who was in the business of printing on uneven surface invited me to a trade show for such devices. In the end I couldn't make it but the suggestion is that there are a lot of solutions out there but not necessarily anywhere close to a modeller's budget.

So are there any companies who offer this as a service like 3D printing and laser cutting.

I can vouch for 4D Modelshop's bespoke dry print service. 24 hour turnround (we were in a hurry) and very crisp result. Quite pricey at about £50 for a single colour A5 sheet but you can get a lot on a sheet that size. If enough people want stuff to fill a sheet (in the same colour of course) then maybe putting what they need on one shared sheet would make it economical for all concerned.

John
 
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