Birney Project ~ Stickin' On the Stickers

Now that the Decals are made, it's time to stick 'em on.

Before anything else, seal the decals with a spray coat so the ink won't smear in the application process. Folks use clear Krylon, Dullcote, etc. Since the Birney is painted with Scalecoat paint, I sealed the decals by spraying them with Scalecoat Gloss. Let dry 24 hours.

It has been a while since I applied decals to a model, let alone decals with pin striping and that need such precision placement as these do. So, to gain some confidence I'm going take some decals that didn't print out all that well when I was trying out different settings on my printer, and use them to practice with.

Shown above is my handy "big ol' hunk of iron" that comes in very handy as a weight for various things. As you can see, I even used it to try out my SDERy Mission Yellow recipe on before I applied it to the model. Now its a perfect candidate to try the decals on! I'm using Microscales Micro Set and Micro Sol to help with the application proccess. Micro Set helps set the decals in place and Micro Sol softens the decals so that they will conform to irregular surfaces such as brick detail, plank detail, or in my case... rivets. The bottom decal was applied first. I was very pleased with it until I discovered that while smoothing it out, I had also stretched it to about 125% of its original size! Thinking I'm not supposed to smooth it out, I applied the second (top) decal and just let it dry on its own, thinking it will just tighten up and lay flat. But no, even though it didn't stretch as bad, its all wiggly. So I sent a frantic email to my good friend and fantastic modeler, Don Ball. He told me his technique for applying decals, which I followed very carefully. Turns out, I was not only using too much Set and Sol, I was using WAY TOO MUCH Set and Sol.

Following Don's instructions, I first dipped the decal into clean drinking water and set it aside to let the moisture from it loosen the decal. While that was happening, I took a much smaller brush this time and applied just enough Micro Sol to moisten the surface of the area of the car to be decaled. The decal was then slid off its backing right on to the moist, slippery surface. I used the brush sparingly dipped in Micro Set again to help position and smooth out the decal., using a small piece of tissue to blot up any excess. Once the decal is in place, I let it dry completely!

Now that everything is dry and stuck in place but good, now I can apply the Micro Sol (the hot stuff, that's why the bottle is red). But only to where its needed! In my case, right over the rivets. I applied small amounts over the rivets and let it soften things a little, using the brush to help conform the decal around the rivets. Not too much though, don't want to rip the decal. Let it dry!

Keep repeating: Moisten with Micro Sol only where needed, nudge, and let dry, as many times nessessary until desired results are achieved. When everything is in place and perfectly dry, I seal the decals by spraying the car with gloss coat.

For the dash signs, I cut some shim brass to size. I wanted to use styrene, but it don't come that thin. I painted the sign the trim brown color. After it was dry, I applied the decals to it and sealed them with gloss. Later I will glue it to the front of the car, after the weathering is done.

It's always amazing to me what a difference lettering and striping makes to a model. I think its looking sharp in its new pin striped suit. Yessir! Lookin' real sharp in it's new pinstriped suit!

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