Someone makes dry transfers of rivets, and weld lines. They are used by
armor (army tank) modellers. A hobby shop that caters to plastic modellers
may carry them, but they are kind of exotic. I'll see if i can coe up with
the name of the company.

At the RPI club, we used to wince when Todd Sullivan explained how he
created lines of rivets by slicing them off other plastic models and glued
them on, one at a time. We would joke about making rivet decals.
When I was a kid, there was a candy that consisted of colored dots
(probably 101% sugar with food coloring) that were attached to what looked
like cash register tape. This is what we were thinking about with rivet
decals.
Now would be possible to make a series of dark crescents on a decal to
suggest the shadowing that rivets cause.
But when Bryon was explaining the problem of embossing rivets on thin
styrene for a tank wrapper, and how this in effect reinforced that area and
created a stiffer area, I got to thinking. There are expensive business
cards that are printed with a thick ink, so that you can feel the printing
when you run your fingers across it. So if someone make a black decal, say,
and then printed on the white lettering for a suitable tank car scheme and
then printed a series of dots with this thicker ink, the car could be
decalled all at once and create the rivets at the same time. And to do
different tank cars, such as multiple compartment/domes, you would just have
to change the printing instead of tooling costs.
Then if this was practical, maybe you could print everywhere with this
thick ink EXCEPT where you wanted a groove or seam and do box car and reefer
sides.
I've been using full surface decals for most of our buildings so being
able to decal a big sheet is not at all difficult. My project someday is do
whole car sides to capture the subtle effects of weathering, starting with
real photos of cars. The hardest thing is finding good period color photos
(not from a printed source like a book as you pick up the dot pattern). -
John

John,

Your idea about the whole car decals is interesting, though not new.
CarLine used to offer specialty lettering on Athearn and other plastic
cars. The fellow who last owned the business told me many of his decals
were special whole-side pieces (or maybe two pieces) which eliminated
the decal film look and were very easy to apply--no cutting. CarLine was
a class act for its time, and the several models I owned looked very
good by the standards of those days.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

John Nehrich wrote:

Archer Fine Transfers offers these, although because most the popular armor scale is 1/35th, they are probably too large. Tichy is offering rivits. I bought some at Timonium but think they are oversized.too.
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 3/21/01, at 2:19 PM, BillD53A@... wrote:

Someone makes dry transfers of rivets, and weld lines. They are used by
armor (army tank) modellers. A hobby shop that caters to plastic modellers
may carry them, but they are kind of exotic. I'll see if i can coe up with
the name of the company.


To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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Bill 'Welch <bwelch@...>
Associate Minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax
P.O. Box 130 Oakton VA 22124 www.uucf.org
Telephone 703 281-4230 Fax 703 281-5399

Bill Welch wrote:

Archer Fine Transfers offers these, although because most the popular armor

scale is 1/35th, they are probably too large. Tichy is offering rivits. I
bought some at Timonium but think they are oversized.too.


The Archer sets were mentioned on r.m.r a year or two ago, and I bought a
couple of sets. Nice definition, but they're flat rather than domed, and way
too thin. Can't find the email correspondence concerning them right now, but
I'll keep looking.

Tom M.

On Mar 21, 1:18pm, tgmadden wrote:

Subject: Re: [STMFC] rivet decals
Bill Welch wrote:

The Archer sets were mentioned on r.m.r a year or two ago, and I bought

a

couple of sets. Nice definition, but they're flat rather than domed, and

way

too thin. Can't find the email correspondence concerning them right now,

but

I'll keep looking.

Tom M.

Tom,

Not to worry -- I've got 'em (the postings, that is). The
difference between the Archer idea and the "Nehrich" idea is that Archer
is using DRY TRANSFERS and not DECALS. I personally like the dry transfer
concept -- no film to hide. I still have a pipe dream of being able to
get strips of properly-spaced rivets that I can use to add ACR to my UP
box cars...

Message summaries (to save bandwidth):
---
Wayne Long wrote:

I measured the thickness of the items in the sample sheet I purchased
from ARCHER. They are 0.02 mm thick. I think that that is something
like 0.00075", which would be only 0.065" in HO.

[The prototype for a standard 1" rivet measures]
Shaft = 1" O.D.
head = 1 5/8"
head thickness = 11/16" + which is 0.22 mm in HO scale
-----
To which Tom Madden replied:

Great info, Wayne. Plan 3XXX Pullmans used 1/2" rivets in the belt rail
and in the long horizontal row at the bottom of the side, and 3/8" rivets
everywhere else in the side. Applying the above formula, the head
diameters would be 7/8" and 11/16", respectively. Or 0.010" and 0.008" in
HO.

----

Regards,

-Jeff

--
Jeff Aley, Development Engineer jaley@...
Graphics Components Division
Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA
(916) 356-3533

OK, below is the post from Wayne Long, who checked out the Archer dry
transfer rivets much more thoroughly than I did. Wayne also goes over rivet
sizes, which may be of interest. I was wrong about it appearing on r.m.r -
it was on the old Passenger Car List in December 1999.

Tom M.
-----
I measured the thickness of the items in the sample sheet I purchased
from ARCHER. They are 0.02 mm thick. I think that that is something
like 0.00075", which would be only 0.065" in HO.

The following is what I sent to ARCHER after I examined the samples:

I can't use your rivet detail because they, simply, are to thin. A
real rivet does not have a flat head. Instead, the head is rounded.
Let me share the formulas relating to size in most railroad rivets.

The "size" of the rivet (in inches) is the outside diameter of the
shaft which goes into the two or more holes in the metal pieces
being riveted together. The diameter of the rivet head, where it
bears on a metal surface is size x 1.5 + 1/8". The head at its
highest point off the same metal surface is:
size x 1.5 + 1/8" x 0.425.

Apply this information to a standard 1" rivet and you get:

Shaft = 1" O.D.

head = 1 5/8"

head thickness = 11/16" + which is 0.22 mm in HO scale

Your rivet would have to be at least 0.22 mm thick and dome shaped
to simulate the prototype.

Hope this helps. Of course, rivets are of various sizes. Most
often, the ones cast into plastic HO cars/tenders are oversize. If
they were of "correct" size, we would not be as aware of them as we
are.

Wayne R. Long
------

On Wed, 21 Mar 2001 13:54:54 -0500 "John Nehrich" <nehrij@...>
writes:

At the RPI club, we used to wince when Todd Sullivan explained
how he
created lines of rivets by slicing them off other plastic models and
glued
them on, one at a time. We would joke about making rivet decals.

Okay guys, since my name was mentioned (misspelled, no less) later in
Johans message, I felt the urge to respond. Actually, I have other urges
right now after 3 hours at this %$#@#$ keyboard, but I'll work them out
later.

Todd Sullivans method is a very respected and much used method. Look
closely at most of the patterns that Frank Hodina has made. I've even
suggested it for making tank car patterns. It may be the only method
available to us who cannot cut dies. But I shutter to think of the
eyestrain needed to keep the spacing in the diagonal rows consistent.

Varney used to make kits photographically, flat card stock with pictures
printed upon them including full shadows and weathering. As much as I'd
like a set of them as reference material, I hope we've moved beyond that
for modeling.

Another company made card sides with the raised lettering process (baked
on resin) (still used as cheap engraved invitations) to represent rivets
but not lettering. It's actually closer to scale for rivets than
anything mentioned so far.

The problem under discussion was making accurate tank car TANKS. Tanks
are assembled using a specific shape conical rivet which is about three
times the visual mass of a typical box car rivet and its conical shape is
very noticeable, even in HO scale. Try holding an InterMountain tank car
next to a box car or worse yet, a brass tank car, and the difference is
immediately visible. Where those printed strips will work for box car
type rivets, they would be quite noticeable as flat on a tank car; just
like those undersize pimples are noticeable on an etched brass tank car,
especially after you've seen a proper representation.

I've said this before but nobody seems to pay attention. I am not a
rivet counter. My interest in accurate models is the texture of the
models. Are the sides smooth from end to end or bumpy? Are the rivets
petit or honkers? Is the underbody sleek and clean or is it junked up
with pipes and levers all over the place? Is this box car shorter or
taller, longer or shorter (same word, different direction??) than that
one? Is this 10 year old car scruffier than that nicely rebuilt car just
out of the paint shop? Does that tank car have those big conical rivets
used on all tank cars until they started welding them?

BSR
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On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:40:29 -0500 "John Nehrich" <nehrij@...>
writes:

B - Sorry about misspelling your name. (Not that this is an excuse,
but you
should see the imaginative ways my last name is spelled. But as tis
said, a
Rose by any other name . . .)

AARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH ! ! ! ! ! ! There, I did it. I said that if I heard
that one more time . . . .

I agree with you as to trying to capture texture, especially if
the size
and shape of tank car rivets are noticeable to you. (And now that
you've
raised that point, this will become noticeable to the rest of us
hitherfore
blind - like the emporer's new clothes.)

Believe it or not, that was exactly my reason for bringing it up.
Congratulations on learning in spite of yourself.

The idea of decals is that the film is thin enough to pass for
invisible
and it is superflexible so it will bend around a curve. It is a way
to
space the rivets evenly. So maybe thick ink is not the way to go
for this
idea.
But suppose there was a way to machine place conical rivets of
styrene
or other materials onto a strip of paper, the paper coated with
varnish, and
then the decal film would contain and space the miniature Madonna's
bras.

The problem with any method of making these conical rivets on the flat is
the same whatever the method of manufacture; machining, gluing,
embossing, etc. The cone shape is a VERY stable shape. It does not want
to distort when we try to wrap its base around our model size tanks.
Whatever they remain attached to, be it film, .005" styrene, or .002"
copper will distort between the still flat rivet bases when rolled. (You
didn't read my earlier comments on this subject, did you?) Gluing will
work to some extent because the cut off rivets, when "welded" using
solvent, will soften enough to confirm to the tank radius. Or, if glued
with ACC, the ACC will fill in the gaps where the rivet base is clear of
the tank curve. Neither method will be as clean as the ideal, injecting
into a machined mold like the P2K and IM kits do. The final appearance
of a glued up pattern will be dependent on the ability of the person
making it to glue each rivet in the same exact position relative to the
curve of the tank. Otherwise the cones will have a tendency to lean
every which way; i.e. look cock-eyed!

One other thing people, rivet is spelled R I V E T. Not rivit like some
of you have spelled it in your emails and even in ads published in
magazines recently. Please try use your smell checker occasionallly.

I'm not
sure if any of these ideas are practical, but maybe they will
inspire
someone to come up with a better idea.

My point, exactly.

BSR
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