Garden Railway Forum

As promised in my thread in the help me section - here are some pics of my first foray into 16mm modelling - two Andel kits.



The flat wagon still needs the painting on the underside finishing (will look like the coal wagon when done rather than being so silver) and they both need lettering and numbering added.. i think the load on the flat wagon could also use some weathering! but overall i'm pretty happy with the result

Currently working on a guards van (also from Andel) to go with them and in the process of wiring up a battery box and xmas lights LED so that it has a nice warm light inside it.

Hopefully they wont look too out of place behind my Ragleth when it finally arrives!

If anyone has any suggestions for a good way of adding lettering and numbers i'd love to hear it!

Couple more pics:

we can't see the pics As for lettering, I've always used brandbright lettering, available for around £6 I think. Otherwise just carefully paint them yourself, most railways lettering tended to be quite rough, on the narrow gauge anyway

hmm - I posted the pictures as attachments? is there another method i should be using here?

i can see the pics! they look lovely!

get some cheap letteraset for lettering

Very nicely done! Andel kits do make up into lovely items.

They look excellent indeed, very nice work. I've built a few Andel kits & they run well. Must infact get some more.
Looking forward to pics of the brakevan.

I can see the images now! Something wrong my end

Lookin very good to me.

So, I've been looking at various options for the lettering on my stock and knocked up this quick image in paint.net



I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about the layout and content I've included. I'm definitely not modelling an actual line, but at the same time I'd like everything to look like it could be from a real line somewhere... unfortunately I've got no clue about this sort of thing at all and am merely working from my own fevered imaginings!

A few pointers / ideas would be really appreciated before i go out and buy some transfers!

The thinking with my numbering of the stock is as follows:

1001, 1002, 1003 etc - first class coaches
2001, 2002, 2003 etc - second class coaches
3001, 3002, 3003 etc - special coaching stock (dining, observation etc)
4001, 4002, 4003 etc - reserved for future expansion
5001, 5002, 5003 etc - coal wagons
6001, 6002, 6003 etc - flat bed
7001, 7002, 7003 etc - slate wagons

with room to add a few more numbering types as required.

Does this sound sensible? Does it sound at all prototypical? is there a better number system i could use?

All thoughts appreciated!

Also, if anyone has any good font recommendations that look suitably narrow-gauge that would be swell

That seems ok to me, from the looking around I did into this when I started building rolling stock. However, I would personally remove one of the 0's from your suggested numbers, ie make them 101, 102, 103 etc unless you are planning on making your line part of a bigger company. Narrow gauge railways had no need to really go into the 1000's for its stock with the exception (I think) of the Ffestiniog slate waggons. However the Vale of Rheidol had high coach numbers as a result of being part of the Great Western, as did the Welshpool and Llanfair.

Should look great but I would not leave off "wagon" from "coal wagon" and just have "coal" written on the side.

I've just got some lettering done by a vinyl cutting machine but it can't cope with anything less than about 12mm high but looks great for company initials and even can take the heat of a mamod on meths.

Thanks for feedback - I've made a couple of changes as advised and it definitely improves the look


Click to see full size image

Has any got any experience with ordering custom sheets of dry transfers from http://www.blackhamtransfers.com/?
Seems to me that if I buy sheets from letraset i'm gonna only use a handful of the letters from each sheet.

Maybe i'd be better getting a custom sheet made?

blackhams is not trading anymore

oh

any alternatives?

Brandbright, DJB, Back 2 Bay 6

Sir haydn wrote:blackhams is not trading anymore

Really? That's odd as he had a stand at the Llanfair Show. Has he stopped since then?

I rang him just before elsecar and he didnt answer. rang geoff munday and he has been told he isnt trading. it was then annonced he had pulled out of elsecar.


Although he is still (apparently) trading at NG Expo??? your guess is as good as mine