Hey, does anyone have the means to shrink some HO decals to Z-scale for me? They are old Seattle & North Coast RR F-unit ones from Herald King and I would like to do some undecorated F-units! You can make as many as you want, I just need two and I will pay for mailing.
What I always did was make black on white copies of HO decals, cut and paste to get the things I wanted and sending it to Rail Graphics as a 2X artwork for N scale decals. You could reduce them a bit to make them 2X for Z scale. I don't know what they are charging these days but I could usually get enough decals from the minimum order to do all the projects I needed and give some to my buddies.
I make decals in Z scale. I have been wanting to hook up my scanner and try to reduce a scanning of Microscale decals. Haven't tried it yet. Sure it would work except for the white. Can you send me a photo of the decals? sgt_tim1 @ yahoo is my address. Tim
Hi Tim, you can scan white decals if you do this... Lay out a paper towel on a plate, then face down your decal sheet on the paper towel. Mix a bottle cap of water with 1 drop of blue food coloring, and use a cheap hobby paintbrush to dab the backside of the decal paper wet with the food color mix. Set the plate in the sun, and let the decal paper dry. Be sure not to move the decal sheet at all, until fully dried, as the decals will slide off. Now you have enough contrast from the white and darker blue to scan! -Robert
Robert, I'm tracking, but how does that make it easier to scan the decals? Even though there is a contrast between the white and darker blue, won't the scanner also scan in the darker blue surrounding the white decal? Do you scan it in black and white and then reverse the contract so that the background is white and the decal lettering black? John Bartolotto
Well, since MicroScale makes many decal sets for HO and N scales, I figure I can buy some white styrene sheets, wet and slide the entire decal set onto the styrene and let it dry. Color Decals on White. I'll never use them for HO or N and I can keep them in a large zip lock bag. On time use. Then scan them into my computer and let Corel do the rest! Tim
