Date
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Printing White Decals - 'Fonts'
At 06:53 AM 5/27/2019, Nelson Moyer wrote:
Absent a full set of railroad stencil drawings;
Basing the lettering on car photographs is the ONLY way to generate accurate artwork... at least for the exact car and date in the photo used.
More caveats:
- Even before 'named' trains.. the road name lettering on engines and passenger cars was NOT necessarily the same as that on freight cars.
- The stencil diagram a historical society has for 9-inch letters probably does NOT scale down correctly to 2, 3 or 4-inch markings.
Even if the letter outline is the same (or similar) the stencil bridges (technical term for the 'bars' that hold interior portions of the stencil) will not necessarily be scaled proportionately.
- Car builders did not always follow the Railroad's lettering instructions... often using what was available, rather than what was specified.
- Car shops usually cut their own stencils... and repaired them as needed, which means individual letters could differ by shop location and date.
- Reweigh and other shop data was applied by whatever shop did the work... not necessarily the car owner. Lettering styles can vary widely...
So... Three rules for accurate artwork:
1) Use a good photo
2) Use another photo...
3) Use all the photos and reference material you can find....
A 'fairly close' example... did NOT do the 1-inch letters (for TT-scale cars!)
The angled lettering in the 'Anthracite' herald took the most time...
One way to recreate specific railroad fonts is to take them from car photographs, trace letters, reporting marks, etc. in a vector drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw, and resize them according to your needs. <snip>
Absent a full set of railroad stencil drawings;
Basing the lettering on car photographs is the ONLY way to generate accurate artwork... at least for the exact car and date in the photo used.
More caveats:
- Even before 'named' trains.. the road name lettering on engines and passenger cars was NOT necessarily the same as that on freight cars.
- The stencil diagram a historical society has for 9-inch letters probably does NOT scale down correctly to 2, 3 or 4-inch markings.
Even if the letter outline is the same (or similar) the stencil bridges (technical term for the 'bars' that hold interior portions of the stencil) will not necessarily be scaled proportionately.
- Car builders did not always follow the Railroad's lettering instructions... often using what was available, rather than what was specified.
- Car shops usually cut their own stencils... and repaired them as needed, which means individual letters could differ by shop location and date.
- Reweigh and other shop data was applied by whatever shop did the work... not necessarily the car owner. Lettering styles can vary widely...
So... Three rules for accurate artwork:
1) Use a good photo
2) Use another photo...
3) Use all the photos and reference material you can find....
A 'fairly close' example... did NOT do the 1-inch letters (for TT-scale cars!)
The angled lettering in the 'Anthracite' herald took the most time...
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Richard Brennan - TT-west
www.tt-west.com
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Dennis Storzek <destorzek@...>
On Mon, May 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM, Richard Brennan wrote:
Different sizes of prototype lettering usually had different drawings, the reason being that as the lettering got smaller, the proportion between the thick and thin strokes became less, so that the thin strokes didn't appear to disappear in the small lettering. Using one style and just reducing it will usually yield small letters that look anemic, and don't print well.
Be aware that in older B&W prints it is not uncommon for areas of great contrast, such as white lettering on a dark car side, to 'swell' as the bright light affects the film emulsion slightly outside of the actual boundaries of the white object. When the negative was printed, this makes the lettering appear bolder than it should be. This can normally be spotted by comparing multiple photos. It also shows itself in a single image by things that should be perfectly sharp square corners, like the ends of the serifs, taking on a rounded appearance. There are some lettering styles that did have rounded serifs, more common today than during the steam era.
Dennis Storzek
More caveats:Very good points, to which I'll add:
- Even before 'named' trains.. the road name lettering on engines and passenger cars was NOT necessarily the same as that on freight cars.
- The stencil diagram a historical society has for 9-inch letters probably does NOT scale down correctly to 2, 3 or 4-inch markings.
Even if the letter outline is the same (or similar) the stencil bridges (technical term for the 'bars' that hold interior portions of the stencil) will not necessarily be scaled proportionately.
- Car builders did not always follow the Railroad's lettering instructions... often using what was available, rather than what was specified.
- Car shops usually cut their own stencils... and repaired them as needed, which means individual letters could differ by shop location and date.
- Reweigh and other shop data was applied by whatever shop did the work... not necessarily the car owner. Lettering styles can vary widely...
Different sizes of prototype lettering usually had different drawings, the reason being that as the lettering got smaller, the proportion between the thick and thin strokes became less, so that the thin strokes didn't appear to disappear in the small lettering. Using one style and just reducing it will usually yield small letters that look anemic, and don't print well.
Be aware that in older B&W prints it is not uncommon for areas of great contrast, such as white lettering on a dark car side, to 'swell' as the bright light affects the film emulsion slightly outside of the actual boundaries of the white object. When the negative was printed, this makes the lettering appear bolder than it should be. This can normally be spotted by comparing multiple photos. It also shows itself in a single image by things that should be perfectly sharp square corners, like the ends of the serifs, taking on a rounded appearance. There are some lettering styles that did have rounded serifs, more common today than during the steam era.
Dennis Storzek
At 01:10 PM 5/27/2019, Dennis Storzek wrote:
One can only imagine the greater difficulty in shop fabricating the stencils; with a rounded end needing to be cut at the end of every stroke.
THROW AWAY that 'Arial Rounded MT Bold' !!!
Richard
<snip> Be aware that in older B&W prints it is not uncommon for areas of great contrast, such as white lettering on a dark car side, to 'swell' as the bright light affects the film emulsion slightly outside of the actual boundaries of the white object. When the negative was printed, this makes the lettering appear bolder than it should be....and that contrast flare can make '8' and '6' nearly indistinguishable, as well as 'O' and 'D' or even 'B' and 'E'.
There are some lettering styles that did have rounded serifs, more common today than during the steam era.I have yet to identify a complete rounded serif freight car lettering set from the steam era.
One can only imagine the greater difficulty in shop fabricating the stencils; with a rounded end needing to be cut at the end of every stroke.
THROW AWAY that 'Arial Rounded MT Bold' !!!
Richard
Curt Fortenberry
Having done a fair amount of artwork, I'll add that as the lettering gets smaller, you have limits to what your printer (commercial or otherwise) can do. I had to use thinner lettering widths at the smaller sizes only to allow for what the ink will actually accomplish. Some of the newer manufacturer's models with pad printing can do things that I couldn't do with a decal.
Curt Fortenberry