Tomix Numbers for self attaching

[Steve]

Hi Folks,

 

I have a question about Numbers you have to self attach on EMUs or Coaches - are those wet Decals, Stickers or for Rubbing on the Models?

 

Thanks for answer

[railsquid]

Rub-on transfers, see e.g. from about 1:45 here:

 

 

[cteno4]

You can also find those little ball end burnishing tools for a couple of bucks in the fingernail art section of the dollar store or beauty supply store. Usually called dotting tools.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5Pcs-Dotting-Tools-Set-for-Nail-Art-Ball-Tip-Clay-Tools-Sculpting-Tracing-Stylus/133375086069?hash=item1f0dc64df5:m:m20RmtAW1xV81Ef9KL0kCqg

 

Very handy for burnishing down rub on transfers and masking tape when painting.

cheers

 

jeff

[Steve]

Thanks you two for your Help!

 

[roadstar_na6]

Is it the same with Kato stuff? I have a E851 and it came with a sticker sheet but I think that it‘s also some kind of rub-on decals. If that‘s the case maybe I‘ll put them on after all 😄

[railsquid]

I assume they're rub-on like Tomix, haven't got round to applying them on my E853s E851s yet.

Edited June 7, 2020 by railsquid
fix class number

[roadstar_na6]

If you do, let me know 😄

[Yavianice]

I have never seen rub on decals for KATO stuff. KATO only has stickers as far as I know. Do you have a picture?

[railsquid]

16 minutes ago, Yavianice said:

I have never seen rub on decals for KATO stuff. KATO only has stickers as far as I know. Do you have a picture?

 

Per Kato product page: "ナンバーはインレタによる選択式"  (インレタ being rub-on decals).

[railsquid]

Picture and instructions 😄

 

[cteno4]

Yeah I’ve seen both all over, but usually most all of Kato tend to be stickers and I think most all the Tomix (not tomytec) have been rub off mostly, can’t be sure of that too many trains, too many years.
 

jeff

[roadstar_na6]

@railsquid Oh man I wish I had those E851 decals and not just the E853 and E854 😄

Edited June 7, 2020 by roadstar_na6

[roadstar_na6]

So I tried applying the rub-on decals to my E851 a few minutes ago and followed the instructions by cleaning it and wiping it dry accurately. I then aligned the decal and rubbed it on with quite a lot of force. Unfortunately it would still rather stick to the transfer sheet and only the inner part of the Seibu logo stayed on. The rest just came back off all the time.

After several attempts I question myself if I did something wrong and for now will probably just leave the loco without numbers 😞

 

EDIT:

Maybe I used too much force? Is a gentle rub enough? Any advice would be greatly appreciated 🙂

Edited June 9, 2020 by roadstar_na6

[cteno4]

one issue is if very old the runoff’s have lost their tackyness. Older ones used a wax adhesive that dries out. Also were they stored in the plastic bag the whole time? If the decals are exposed to dust, heat and air they slowly loose their tackyness. Always put them back in their package with the protective sheet in place. Dry transfers are basically jist ink printed onto the slick backing sheet then a layer of adhesive is printed just over the ink areas. The adhesive is a wax based one for older ones, newer ones use fancier pressure sensitive adhesives that don’t dry out as much.

 

ive heard folks warm them a little with a hair dryer to help soften the transfer and get it tacky. Others say washing carefully with water then microwaving dry can clean off smutz and revive them.

 

if you have enough extras on the sheet you might experiment some.

 

also what are you burnishing them down with? Best to use the little ball burnishers I linked above. You want to start at one edge of the decal bit and start there and work your way across the decal back and forth slowly. The idea is to get the one edge tracked down and then slowly tack down the rest in sort of a wave across the decal. Don’t just randomly scribble all over. Also using a large burnisher surface can not apply the pressure properly to get a good transfer.

 

you can make your own ball burnisher by using a sewing pin with a small round head and stick it in a pin vise or xacto handle if it has the center bit of the collet drilled out (some come this way to hold bits like a pin vice collet).
 

might also use a swab with some soapy water on the decal spot to really clean the area well. If it’s on an inset bit use a bit of paper towel over a tooth pick end to really get in all the corners well. Rinse with a swab if water and dry and swab with isopropanol lightly to make sure all the grease is off the paint. If the loco has been used for years it’s probably covered in finger grease and dust well.
 

you also don’t want to touch the transfer side of the transfer with your fingers, use clean forceps as you will just put a layer of finger grease across the glue layer of the transfer and prevent it from adhering to the surface properly.

 

if you do get these cranky transfers to finally transfer I would think about using some sealer to keep them on. Microscale sells a clear brush on acrylics for just this purpose that dry pretty thin and edges not very noticeable. Again test to make sure it works well with your transfer and also the right finish to match your train’s finish (I think they have gloss, satin and flat). Bummer if a month later the transfers you worked so hard to get on fall off...

 

Good luck!

 

jeff

[roadstar_na6]

Hey Jeff, thanks for the input.

 

I got the loco in 2015 but it was in it‘s box for 99% of the time and so were the decals still in the plastic bag.

I used something with a pointy but not too sharp tip to press it down and also tried to clean it a little wih a q-tip.

 

I might try cleaning it again with some alcohol and a little less force and aligning the sheet with some tape instead of just holding it like in some videos shown online.

 

My guess is that the combination of not enough cleaning and too much force caused the decals to not attach properly.

 

I got another try to fail but would then have to nail it 😄

[cteno4]

How many extra do you have? Might try practicing on one or two on a clean sheet of styrene. They take a little practice to get the knack of it. Also take a look on YouTube as I’m sure plenty of tutorials there to learn from and watching can really be the most powerful way to grok something like this.

 

if it’s possible with your current situation to get to a beauty supply place they should have those dotting tools (sounds silly but they have a lot great hobby tools and supplies like fine brushes, swabs, tweezers, etc). They really are perfect dry transfers burnishers. You can get regular burnishers but they are usually expensive and basically the same thing. Nice thing on that set of 5 nail dotting tools is there is a range of sizes depending on the size of the graphic you are putting down. But a good small ball sewing pin in a pin vise should do the trick if small enough. You won’t want a flat surface Or super sharp one but a curved one so it sort of does a curved wave pushing down the transfer onto the surface and then the backing pulling away behind.

 

again play with some extras to get a feel for it and see what works best for you and with the cranky transfers.

 

if you are putting them into a small depression in the model you may have to cut the transfer down to just the size of the depression to get it sunk in there to transfer well. Cutting the transfer small helps but it can be a pain to get in place and hold in place. One trick that has worked for me when I get a super dense sheet of transfers (some come with practically no space between them and hard to not accidentally stick part of a neighbor down) is to cut out the piece and put it on a piece of clear magic tape. Then you can use the big piece of tape to maneuver the tiny transfer into position and just gently push the tape down (not super hard it doesn’t need much to hold it) to hold it all in place while you burnish. Only rub here is you have the layer of magic tape in there, but generally with the clear, thin magic tape It works. 
 

if holding a larger sheet you do need to keep it still while burnishing as any movement in the sheet will twist your transfer. 
 

also I use the good old museum gloves when handling dry transfers. these are the very light, thin linen gloves you can get for like less than a dollar a pair. They are better than using latex or nitrile gloves as any grease on them gets sucked up and transferred less. Slick gloves just transfer finger grease all over. I just keep these gloves in a baggie so they don’t get dusty between use and I shake them out well before use.

 

I have a very long history with dry transfers as im old enough to have worked on putting numbers, letters, lines, boxes, circles and stuff on graphics and models precomputer and letraset dry transfers were the main way to rapidly do this! You’d go to a printing shop and they had a wall of little drawers with 8.5x11 sheets of letters, numbers, lines, shapes in different sizes and fonts! You just did it all one letter at a time! I got very fast at doing them and the burnishing was something that became a totally reflexive process! before the dry transfers everyone did lettering like this using a rapidograph pens and a stencil/template system that was oh so slow, messy, ugly and so easy to screw up and waste hours of work! In grad school (just before and as  the mac hit) I became a huge hero showing folks how to do dry transfers for their paper and slide figures. I could label up their figure in 10 minutes that would take them 5 attempts and many hours of work. Earned me many many beers! Later in grad school I taught them how to use the Mac and got us a laser printer ($7k at the time) and networked the building (university forbid us doing this so just did it at night and wired it with the phone lines!) and that got me many more free beers,

 

Cheers

 

jeff

[railsquid]

I've applied Tomix decals before which must have been a decade or two old without any particular problems.

 

The Kato E851 ones I have appear to be from 2003 (!), if I get a moment I'll see if I can apply them to my unnumbered E851.

[railsquid]

9 hours ago, roadstar_na6 said:

I might try cleaning it again with some alcohol

 

That might not do the paintwork any good.

 

I have got good results by rolling Blu-tack or similar (e.g. Pritt Klebemasse) over the location to be cleaned.

 

Quote

I got another try to fail but would then have to nail it

 

Nailing on decals sounds a bit drastic 😉

[cteno4]

Gentle cleaning with 70% isopropanol won’t get paint. You need to soak it for a while or rub hard for it to start going at model train paints. All that is needed here is a couple of gentle swipes and let it air dry.

 

i would be careful with what Blue tack you use as some of them can leave residues. Squids doesn’t but I’ve seen some cheap blue tacks leave residues on papers fast.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

37 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Gentle cleaning with 70% isopropanol won’t get paint. You need to soak it for a while or rub hard for it to start going at model train paints. All that is needed here is a couple of gentle swipes and let it air dry.

 

Early on in my "career" I had a couple of incidents with Kato Unicleaner (which I assume, but am not 100% sure) is closely related to IPA, which efficiently removed some lining from the body of a loco I though I'd try and clean up. As result of which I tend to be cautious with that kind of thing. Though I did use it to clean up some poorly-applied door seal lining from a MicroAce EMU with no ill effects, but I was happy to risk that as it was dirt cheap and risking damage to a single car.

 

The side decals for the E851 are applied to a stripe which looks like it's applied over the base body colour, so personally I won't be taking any risks...

[roadstar_na6]

I would‘ve used some wodka my girlfried has for cleaning stuff 😄 but maybe then soapy water is better.

 

Thanks for your inputs, maybe if you do attach them you can do some sort of step-by-step instruction with what tools you used and stuff, squid. I‘d greatly appreciate that 🙂

[cteno4]

I have no idea of what’s in the Kato unicleaner, never used it.

 

ive had decades of experience of straight isopropanol on all sorts of stuff and 70% lightly applied for cleaning to loads of paints and plastics have not caused any issues at all. Yes I’ve used isopropanol to strip paints but that’s at 95% with long applications like soaking and ultrasonic baths. Ethanol as well with prolonged exposure can damage paints. Here we are taking about a couple of gentle wipes with a swab.

 

i don’t usually use other proprietary cleaning agents for any sensitive cleanings as I have no idea of what is in them. I don’t use the Tomix track cleaner as I know it has xylene and toluene in there by just whiffing it and I don’t want them on some plastics and paints. Those are great cleaning agents, but very fast actors on paints and plastics. Again I tend to use the stuff I know whats in them and how they act.

 

Jeff

[Kamome]

On 6/7/2020 at 6:07 PM, Yavianice said:

I have never seen rub on decals for KATO stuff. KATO only has stickers as far as I know. Do you have a picture?

The earlier EF63 and DF50 Kato models had rub on loco numbers. Really nice individual metallic numbers rather than the  plastic number boards most come with now.

[railsquid]

29 minutes ago, Kamome said:

The earlier EF63 and DF50 Kato models had rub on loco numbers. Really nice individual metallic numbers rather than the  plastic number boards most come with now.

 

So do the EF210 and EF510, come to think of it, at least the ones I have, though more recent releases seem to have plastic plates.

[railsquid]

On 6/10/2020 at 4:52 PM, roadstar_na6 said:

I would‘ve used some wodka my girlfried has for cleaning stuff 😄 but maybe then soapy water is better.

 

I have no idea what vodka might do to the paint...
 

Quote

 

Thanks for your inputs, maybe if you do attach them you can do some sort of step-by-step instruction with what tools you used and stuff, squid. I‘d greatly appreciate that

 

 

Not having tried these Kato decals before, first thing I did was cut out a non-essential piece and attach it to an old, non-essential loco, which worked quite well 😄

 

 

though there is some residue from the decal, the reverse of which seems to be lightly adhesive. Surface was "cleaned" using the Pritt stuff mentioned previously.

 

It seemed sensible to cut out each number to be applied (be careful as the cut-out bits are very easily mislaid, don't ask me how I know that 😉 ), which reduces the risk of accidentally applying bits from another part of the decal sheet, and makes it easier to position the number, which I did by attaching a strip of masking tape and maneuvering it into place with tweezers holding the masking tape. Another strip holds the other side down. As mentioned, the reverse of the decal sheet seems lightly adhesive, so smoothing that down lightly with fingers, and the masking tape more firmly, seems to hold the whole ensemble in place quite well. This is important as if the decal sheet shifts slightly, whatever is being applied will distort.

 

Once that's in place, locate the burnishing tool of your choice (I use a cocktail stick) and holding the decal sheet down with one finger, rub firmly over the silvery bits so you've covered the entire area multiple times in multiple directions. As the logo is circular, rub over that in a circular motion as well.

 

Seibu E851 (E853) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Then, while still holding the decal sheet in place with a finger, gently peel back the masking tape and the decal sheet, and in theory you should end up with the number on the locomotive and the used decal sheet in your hands.

 

Seibu E851 (E853) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Then take a break before applying the other side. And be thankful Seibu didn't put numbers on the cab ends ;).

 

Seibu E851 (E853) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

I noticed with these decals that the elements are slightly raised and very shiny, which from some angles gives the impression bits are missing or distorted, but that's an optical illusion.

 

Oh yes, and when working on the loco, remove the pantographs as they have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Edited June 11, 2020 by railsquid