Niles Project ~ Signs of Destiny

Super Detailing Continued: Adding Dash Signs to the Niles Cars

A SCTC club member showed me a car that he had bought on which the dash signs were decaled right onto the front of the car. To me, that is what it looked like. Because it conformed with the curve of the front of the car, the sign looked painted on . But dash signs are flat. I prefer the 3d look of separate signs. So that's what I'm going to do. And its easy enough to do.

 

K+S Engineering offers a bag of Shim Brass of assorted sizes. Some of these are really thin. Much thinner than what can be achieved with plastic. And yet still be nice and rigid.

The brass is thin enough to be cut with an X-acto. I cut the brass to match the size of the decals that where made and printed at the same time as the rest of the cars decals.

Decals adhere to glossy paint best. So the decals were printed on clear decal paper and the brass painted the background color. White in this case. I used Floquil Antique White. Its cream color isn't as stark as Reefer White would be. So that the paint doesn't flake off, the brass has to be prepared before painting. I used the exact same technique as I did to prepare the brass models for painting. After the paint dried for a day, I gave it a coat of Floquil Gloss and another day to dry. Now the decals can be applied.

The dash signs are glued in place with good ol' Micro Kristal Kleer. Now these cars look like they got somewhere to go. Yes sir! Somewhere to go!

Dandy