#135 ~ Signs of Destiny

 Researching and Making Decals for Route Numbers and Destination Signs

In the Vast Majority of Photos of the Class 1's, the Cars are Sporting Destination Signs. So then Shall My Cars.

But this turned out to be a big research project to determine what exactly these destination read.

Fortunately I have accumulated a lot of photos of these cars over the years. So I can actually read what most of the destination signs read.  But I don't have photos of all the routes, so I have to make educated guesses as to the rest.

The San Diego Electric Railway seemed to change some of its routes rather often making it kind of difficult to determine what exactly the routes where when these cars were new.

Schedules published during that era gave some helpful route descriptions. What I had to do was determine what they would have put on the signs.

And this colorful display is what I came up with. (Click to make Big). The colors are a complete guess though- routes weren't color coded back then like they are now. So I may have gone overboard with the colors. But it shor is purty!

Detail view. I will be making these decals available to you through Custom Traxx very soon.

Yes sir!  Destined to you very soon!

Dandy

1926 SDERy Route Map

 Geesh! The San Diego Electric Railway modified it's routes often!

Here is how it appeared in 1926 according to the April 1943 issue of the Railroad Boosters Wheel Clicks publication.

I'm posting it here for posterity considering the rarity and delicacy of this issue. Click to make huge:

My latest effort is fabricating destination dash signs for my San Diego streetcars. So I'm collecting material about the various routes. I'll keep you posted.

Yes sir! Destination Dash Signs!

Dandy

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

Niles Project ~ I Cal. You Cal. We All Cal for Decals!

Creating decals for #105.

Voilà! Pretty much used the same technique that I used for the Birney car to make these decals for the Niles car. See my post: Birney Project~ Fresh Homemade Decals.

My model of #105 is based on the history of #101. So I used this photo as reference for the font style and the locations of the lettering and pin-striping.

The earliest surviving SDERy streetcar is car #54 of 1895 (rebuilt 1901) vintage. It ran until it was retired in 1913. So it was around at the same time as the Niles cars. #54 sports red 3D lettering with drop shadows. Looking at the b&w photo of #101, this seems to be of the same color scheme. So I went with that. SDERy seemed to have used either red, silver, or brown for lettering, so I'm pretty confident this is the correct color scheme.

Here is a nice clear closeup of #101 that I used for the destination sign. ( I deduced that the sign on the other end of the car read "To San Diego"). Its' also the only photo that I have come across that clearly shows the "garnish" in the corners of the pin-striping. Is that supposed to be a rose? My simplified version looks like an ant! Either way, it doesn't matter. It's really minuscule on the model.

#105 has been sprayed with a layer of Floquil Hi Gloss necessary for applying decals to surfaces painted with Floquil paints. Once its dry we can apply the decals. Decals really make a model, I can't wait to see what 'ol #105 is going to look like with decals. Exciting isn't it? Yes sir! Very exciting indeed!

Dandy

Birney Project ~ Fresh, Homemade Decals

This whole "making decals" thing has me pretty nervous. It seems like this can make or break this project. So, as usual, I'm just going to take it one step at a time, and at a pace I'm comfortable with, a pace that I have come to call "tinkering speed".

I'm confident that Photoshop can easily handle the tiny lettering and details required, but my biggest concern is whether or not my printer is capable of printing such tiny details with any sort of clarity. But first thing is first. Lets make the artwork.

This blog seems to have a few regular readers. But honestly, I maintain this blog mainly so I can remember how the heck I did things! So, in the future when I'm making decals again, here are a few things I'll want to remember: I'm using the Cannon MultiPASS F30 to scan and print. It has a resolution of 2400 x 1200 dpi. So the artwork is being made at 1000 dpi to be within that parameter. And now back to the show...

First, I scan my reference photo of ol' #301 and import it into Photoshop. I also imported a mugshot of my model. The lettering will be extracted from the ref photo and applied onto the photo of the model. Using the "lasso" tool, I select the side of the car in the ref photo.

I then apply the selection to the model photo. Using the "perspective" tool, I'm able to "flatten" the photo and conform it to the dimensions of the model. Now its just a matter of tracing the lettering and pin striping.

"INBOUND PAY AS YOU ENTER. OUTBOUND PAY AS YOU LEAVE. Transfers Issued Only At Time Fare Is Paid" Fortunatly, my 8x10 glossy reference photo is detailed enough where I can make out the fine print. But we'll see if this actually makes it onto the model without being a complete blur.

After much fussing and tinkering, I eventually get things to look about right. Everything is on different layers. So now all I have to do is turn off the layers with elements I don't need anymore and rearrange the artwork so it makes efficient use of the decal paper.
I had to make some educated guesses on some of the signs here. The ref photo only shows one end of the car, so I had to research the routes that this car took to help determine what the signs on the other end read.

Ta-da! Wow! I am just pleased as bees at how well these turned out! And because I'm such a generous guy, clicking on the decal image above will open a big juicy copy of it so that you (yes YOU my loyal followers) can print your own decals!!! Because I know that tons of folks out there are wanting to build their own model of SDERy #301!

Except for the fancy, long out of production, and expensive ALPS printer, printers don't print white or light (as in light magenta, light cyan, light yellow or any of the variants between). Fortunately for me, my decals are black (actually dark brown) so I'm able to print right onto clear decal paper. Since my printer is an Ink Jet I used paper for an Ink Jet, which is important, Laser paper wont work in an Ink Jet printer and vice versa.

But! The route board is brown and yellow, so I have to print that onto white decal paper (or if using the clear decal paper, prepare the surface first with white before applying the decal).

After futzing with the settings on the printer...

You know... It's funny the things that make me happy. This makes me really happy. I'm walking around with the biggest grin on my face... Success!!! These printed out beautifully!

Look! You can even read the fine print!!! Wow. This is a big load off of my mind, I am so pleased with the results. I am just pleased as bees. Yessir! Pleased as bees!





Dandy

Birney Project ~ Wiring for Trolley Pole Reverse

Fortunately, the Birney cleaned up nicely from the April fools day disaster ;-P. So now we can continue with the wiring. I'm going to use a nifty technique known as "Trolley Pole Reverse":

Trolley Pole Reverse wiring is used with live overhead. The direction of the trolley is reversed by simply switching poles, no need to switch polarity in the track! The way it works is; one pole is wired to one of the motor leads, and the other pole is wired to the other motor lead. When one pole is up in contact with the positive overhead, the motor lead it is wired to becomes energized with the positive electrisicles. The other pole is down making a connection with the holddown hook on the roof. That hook is part of the metal car body that is energized with the negative electrisicles from the wheels in contact with the negative rail. So that pole is energizing the motor lead its wired to with the negative electrisicles, making a circuit! Then, switch the position of the poles so the first is down and the other pole is up, the polarity of the motor leads are reversed and the trolley runs in the opposite direction! Cool huh?

Utah Pacific #CLU-96 Constant Lighting Kit wired in series with the motor provides 1.5 volts for reversing headlights and taillights as well as constant lighting for the destination board and route number signs. I had to omit the interior lighting, the unit is at capacity with the 7 bulbs its already lighting. Maybe someday I'll be able to figure out how to light the interior but, if I was to do it all again, I would go with LEDs. They last much longer, I'm not looking forward to fishing out a burnt out bulb out of the spaghetti of wiring shown above. The bulbs are glued in place with Elmers White Glue. Elmers is also used to glue the wires to the ceiling so that the dont hang down in the windows. Elmers hold really well but is also easy enough to remove.

2 Pin Micro Mini Connector from Miniatronics (Code: 50-001-02) allows the motor/truck assembly to be detached from the body for maintenance. One pin is wired to one trolley pole and the other pin wired to the other pole/constant lighting module. The negative charge from the rails transfer through the mounting screws to the trolley body and hold down hooks.

Add some power and "bling"... yessir! "Bling"!

Dandy

Birney Project ~ Final Brasswork

It’s about time to get this Birney painted! So I am trying to think of any last minute brass work that needs to be finished beforehand.

In a previous post I said I was going to let the bulb lighting the destination sign also light the interior. But I have since rethought that. The idea of a bulb just dangling there doesn’t sit well with me. So I fabricated a housing for the bulb lighting the destination sign. I simply used square tube stock and filed away the front. At the same time I gave it a curve so that it conforms to the curve of the front of the car. Then I drilled a hole for a round tube to slip into. The bulb slides through the tube and into the housing.

The two tubes on the left house the marker lamp bulbs. Next to them is the new housing for the destination sign bulb. And to the right of that, coming down from the ceiling, is the tube that will house the bulb for the route number sign on the roof of the car. That's a lot of bulbs, I hope this works. Yessir! I really hope this works!

The route number sign boxes on the roof of the cars are rather prominent, so I’m going to give modeling them a shot.


I started by carefully determining and marking the location of the sign. Then I drilled out a pilot hole through the roof and the ceiling.


The pilot hole is widened to accommodate the 3/16” tube, which is soldered into place.


Taking a square file, I filed through the front and the side of the tube. The bulb will reside in the tube, shining through these openings.

A Plastruct square acrylic tube is cut to length and a test fit shows that it fits perfectly over the brass tube. This photo shows the bulb mounting tubes from outside the car: the Route sign on the roof, the new destination sign housing, and the marker lamp housings.

An anonymous tipster (using the comments feature at the bottom of each of these blog posts) pointed out that Birney’s don’t have rivets on the front ends. So I filed those off. I tried to remove the retriever so that I could move it to the other side of the headlight, but it won’t budge. I’ll live with it. I also added security bars in the windows. These I soldered in, but next time I might just glue them in place. They had quite a reaction to the heat, warping them. I think the car is looking mighty pretty, so it’s off the paint shop for a fresh coat of SDERy “Mission Yellow”. But that’s a whole ‘nother story, Yessir! A whole ‘nuther story!

Dandy

Birney Project - Opening up the destination signs.

One of the modifications I want to make to the Birney car is to open up the solid brass destination signs so that I can have it light up.

The destination sign is over the short window on the left. Ken Kidder has the shape of it stamped in there, so that simplifies things some.

Start by drilling small holes large enough to accommodate a miniature ream.

A ream is basically a cylindrical file.

Ream out the holes into a roughly square shape so that it can accommodate square file.

I highly recommend using some sort of magnification while working with such tiny models. That’s Dave wearing his Optivisor®.

Hack away at the brass now that the square file fits in there, roughing out the shape of the opening.

Easy does it now with the flat file, carefully leveling out the edges into straight lines out to the final size of the openings.

Corners are the toughest. Your file with the sharpest edge will determine how sharp the corners of the opening will be. I find that a three sided file has the sharpest edges.

And there you go. An opening where once there were none. Took about an hour to do, and I still have the one on the other end to do.

Then I'll have to figure a way to light it, but I’ll worry about that when I get to it. Yessir, worry about it when I get to it.