White decal circles

"Mark Mathu" wrote

A sheet of white decal paper (available from Micro-Mark I believe) and a hole-punch would give you as many white dots as you needed in just a couple of minutes.

-Pete

On Wed, 28 May 2008 22:48:05 -0700, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and "P. Roehling" instead replied:

Actually, the hole size of 1/16" makes even the smallest hole punch useless but this does give me an idea.

Remember the old paper tape computer storage? They had hole punches that would make millions of punches an hour and each dot punched was exactly 1/16" in diameter. Sounds like a good use for a very obsolete piece of equipment. If you can find one.

-- Ray

"Ray Haddad" wrote

BING!

Sorry, but there are hole-punchers out there that come with a selection of plungers and palettes in different sizes. Mine, for instance, will cut discs anywhere from 1/16" to 1/4" in 1/32" graduations.

For an even cheaper version see:

for a 1/16" hole punch that lists for around $7.00.

-Pete

Jeepers, 1/16" diameter decals would be kinda tedius to apply, wouldn't they? Why not find some 1/16" diameter rubber (even an o-ring section would work if you can't find something straight) and use it like a rubber stamp with some white paint? Maybe stryene rod would would as well to apply the paint dots.

Dale

I only need a few dozen at most.

Yes, no doubt. The first thing I thought of for a similar modelingf experience I've has was my memories of putting dashes on the sills of 1950s-era boxcars.

Yeah... my first plan is to paint (especially since these are only trackside HO scale signs), I'm just starting to work on a "plan B" to avoid surprises -- and I couldn't find dots in my Microscale catalog. So I am looking for ideas to be prepared.

Your advice is great ... probably even a styrene rod is a solution, since I only need a few dozen and I can certainly accept a a few failures in my attempts.

Thanks for an obvious idea which slipped right past me. ____ Mark

I was hoping to avoid the condition of one layer of paper (or cardstock) on another. I'm trying to find ideas for putting a white circle on a metal star, see

I probably am too narrow-focused to just be looking at a decal solution as a back-up to trying to hand-paint it. I am open to all ideas.

"Mark Mathu" wrote

No, no! The decal paper I'm speaking of is -if I understood the Micro-Mark text correctly- just one big white decal that you use for a background when you're computer printing your logo on it. You then cut it out carefully and your logo now has a white background. (See these old S.P. roundels as an example of the sort of logo I'm thinking about.)

So your white dots would be tiny round white *decals*, not just another layer of paper.

How cool! What railroad used those?

Easy one: do it the same way *they* probably did it! Cut (or punch, or whatever) a 1/16" round hole in a piece of paper and hold it right up next to the flanger star ( you could center it on a tiny penciled dot right in the center of the star) and then swipe across it once lightly with an airbrush loaded with white paint.

Probably be a good idea to practice a while on scraps until you get it right consistently, but I've seen guys do *extremely* intricate camouflage jobs on aircraft models using exactly that technique, so I *know* it can be done!

-Pete

If you made it past my "stryene" and "would would", I'm sure you'll succeed with very few failures in any method you choose :)

Obviously time for bed, Dale

On Thu, 29 May 2008 02:02:47 -0500, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and "Mark Mathu" instead replied:

How about paint with a rubber stamp?

-- Ray

On Thu, 29 May 2008 02:08:57 -0500, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and "Mark Mathu" instead replied:

Actually, I didn't see either this or the previous post before I posted mine but balsa wood from the other corner of the hobby shop could be used as a stamp and comes in 1/16" size.

Good luck Mark.

-- Ray

Even better idea :)

Dale

Chicago Great Western

I got white circles from a commercial sheet of dry transfer symbols. You can get squares, starts, circles, full or outlined. Not sure of exact sizes for your project, but I got lucky.

Ray Hobin

NMRA Life # 17XX; TCA # HR-78-XXXXX; ARHS # 2XXX Durham, NC [Where tobacco was king; now The City of Medicine]

But the mask and airbrush idea holds better chances for consistently accurate placement.

On 5/28/2008 11:49 PM P. Roehling spake thus:

I'm curious about your punch. Unfortunately, you must have left something off that URL, since it tells me "unreadable! This usually occurs when a cart-id code is not formed correctly in the "item" variable." when I look at it.

"Howard Garner" wrote

Thanks, Howard.

Somehow I'd never seen a picture of one before, and it struck me as being really neat.

-Pete

"David Nebenzahl" wrote

Whoops, sorry! Turns out I can't access it either. That's what I get for trying to save everyone some time.

Try

and scroll down the page a bit less than half way.

-Pete

P.S. This is not *my* punch. Mine's very old and was made by the Whitney Metal Tool Company of Rockford Illinois for heavy commercial use such as making gaskets, punching holes in leather, Etc. Works okay on paper too, though.

"Ray Haddad" wrote

But balsa isn't available as a dowel; it only comes in square or rectangular cross-sections. However.

1/16" hardwood dowels are still available in some hardware stores, and if you can't find those, cutting a round toothpick carefully in half on one of the tapered ends would yield you a perfectly round "dot stamp" of whatever size you needed up to roughly 3/32". (Or, you could get the same effect by running a small dowel into a pencil sharpener and then trimming it off to the diameter you wanted...)

Okay, I'm officially out of ideas at this point.

-Pete