Decals on Steam Locomotives

[R.K. Maroon]

I thought I would survey the forum for advice. Here is a tender of steam locomotive that is currently sitting on my workbench for repair and restoration:



As can be seen, the decals have all but flaked off. My guess is they never seated well in the first place. The tender needs to wind up with a flat finish, but decals like a gloss finish. What is the best way to get from here to there? All the "engine black" paint that I have is flat.

Jim

(edited title)

[GreggL]

I'd either use dry transfers on the flat engine black, or after painting with the flat engine black, hit the decal area with GlossCote. Decal, then come back over everything with DullCote.

...gregg

[Jay Criswell]

What Gregg said.

Jay

[bob turner]

Notme. High gloss ScaleCoat, let dry for two weeks, decal, then Future Floor Wax carefully applied with a Q-Tip, then let dry a day, and finally a coat of flat clear.

Decals should be applied with water and a tiny drop of dish detergent, then set with Microsolve or Solvaset.

[bob turner]

Murtherfore, if you cannot find Champ or mIcroscale, my new decal guy has these:



The old pricewas ten bucks plus postage for four of these, La Belle now sells them. Tell Rick I sent you.

Also do not forget - Protocraft is doing spctacular decal work. They may have SP Steam by now, and prices are very reasonable.

[bob turner]

Here is another. The "yellow" is really gold.

[Jay Criswell]

If you're looking for SP steam you might try the sets from San Juan. The early sets were way too thin and very difficult to apply.

http://www.sanjuandecals.com/sp-decal-sets.html

Jay

[sarge]

Jim:

Three questions:

I can't help you with recommendations if your paint on hand is acrylic, but you can make substitutions with acrylic paints you know.

If the requirement is to use the paint on hand, we'd need to know what that is.

Are you stripping the tender or is the paint itself acceptable to you for smoothness and adherence as a primer?

Otherwise,

I shoot Scalecoat or Trucolor now-a-days.

After it cures (not just dry, but cured), I use a clearcoat so that you have a gloss finish for decals or flat for dry-transfers. If what you have is Floquil, I've found the best way to gloss it up is to mix their own "crystal-coat" in the paint itself. I can mail you a bottle if you need.

If decals, I find Microsol a waste of time; Solvaset neat for all but the very thinnest decal substrate and I keep some cut 30% for very thin decals.

After the lettering is done, I seal with gloss clearcoat no matter the lettering type. Gloss seals decals better than flat and blends the edges better; same sealing advantage with dry transfers.

After that, I use dull clearcoat to flatten to suit.

All this is just my preferred method; all airbrushed.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

After the lettering is done, I seal with gloss clearcoat no matter the lettering type. Gloss seals decals better than flat and blends the edges better; same sealing advantage with dry transfers.

You might exercise a bit of caution on the brand of gloss/flat with the dry transfers dependent on source and when they were produced. I did get a very useful note from Clover House with one of my recent orders noting a bit of incompatibility with some brands and a list of "safe" brands.

[sarge]

Love to see that list.

In my modelling I've been doing letter-by-letter dry-transfers from Woodland Scenics rather than ordering from the UK (another story for another time and probably only of academic interest here) and have found their's to be unaffected by Testors Glosscote, Floquil Crystal-coat (sic) and the various Tru-color finishes.

More info would be valuable here amongst this crowd.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Love to see that list.

In my modelling I've been doing letter-by-letter dry-transfers from Woodland Scenics rather than ordering from the UK (another story for another time and probably only of academic interest here) and have found their's to be unaffected by Testors Glosscote, Floquil Crystal-coat (sic) and the various Tru-color finishes.


More info would be valuable here amongst this crowd.

Different printers, different inks, etc. give different results

And, now if I can only find where I put that bit! Came with a recent order, too! Tom is here so he might be able to supply that directly?

I stopped using Woodland Scenics many years ago when I had a lot of trouble with far too many transfer failures. I had some transfers from Clover House "run" using Testors Glosscote some time ago I just chalked up to being me and/or an anomaly since it has not happened to me since. Looking back that may have not been me at all, but an incompatibility event. Oddly enough, I'm now using a clear matte from Rustoleum of all things to seal down dry transfers.

[Tom Dempsey]

The upshot of all my testing is that it appears that lacquer to lacquer is the problem with the newer Clover House products only. If you're determined to go with a lacquer clear coat, I strongly recommend experimenting first on a scrap piece of the dry transfers, such as the logo before going after a properly registered final product. Below is the body of the message I've been enclosing with product orders.

Recently it has been brought to my attention that there are some compatibility problems with certain commonly used clear sealers and later printings of Clover House dry transfers. After some testing, we have discovered that Testor’s brand 1160 DullCote Lacquer and Testor’s brand 1260 Spray Lacquer cause an undesirable reaction with currently available dry transfer ink. We have tested Model Master Acryl brand 4636 Flat Clear Acryl, Testors Decal Bonder Spray, Plaid Patricia Nimocks Clear Acrylic Sealer, Krylon Matte Finish, and TruColor TCP-17 Flat with no apparent problematic interactions noted. In addition, modeler’s have reported no adverse effects when using ScaleCoat Satin Finish, Valspar Acrylic Matte Medium and Walmart Clear Enamel Spray Finish. We’ll continue to pursue this problem until we can find a better resolution, however, in the interim I recommend refraining from the use of any lacquer clear coats when sealing in Clover House brand dry transfers.

Sincerely,



Tom Dempsey

[bob turner]

Sarge, Martin, and I seem to be in agreement.

I have limited experience with dry transfers, and had some problems with Woodland a couple decades ago. Flat is better for dry transfers.

I agree with Sarge, except that Scale Coat -the formula I always bought - dried glossy, except for some engine blacks, and took decals directly. For wet decals, the glossier the better.

I have had some trouble with clear coats - the Scale Coat clear gloss attacked a beautiful Brunswick Green T1 with decals attached. I almost did not recover from that one. Hence the Future Floor Wax, which is acrylic and water - based, and acts as a barrier to the spray-on clear.

I used to use Testors or Krylon in a rattle can for all but the most delicate matte finish jobs - but Krylon changed everything, and is no longer suitable for any kind of model work. Rustoleum used to be horrible, but they too changed a bit, and it is now my rattle-can of choice.

For fine work, I use an airbrush and Floquil matte finish. They have a special name for it. One caution: while you can thin most Floquil with lacquer thinner, their matte finish requires Dio-Sol.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Rustoleum used to be horrible, but they too changed a bit, and it is now my rattle-can of choice.

The flat primer colors are ones that I find rather useful; that matte clear seems useful, too.

For fine work, I use an airbrush and Floquil matte finish. They have a special name for it. One caution: while you can thin most Floquil with lacquer thinner, their matte finish requires Dio-Sol.

I'm just terribly lazy and hate to set up for airbrushing; I will when the weather is good if really needed.

Diolsol - look up the composition and you might be able to get some made even in CA if you know anybody over at the university chemistry department.

[robert.]

Bob, How well does your spray painting stick to floor wax?