Heres another quick modeling tip! Often times, factory painted locomotives don't come in the road number that you want! Here a quick fix thats easy, cheap, and fast!
This is a FANTASTIC video! I had done this in similar fashion but tried the solvaset/tape method last night on an Athearn RTR Trinity 5161 hopper that needs to be renumbered. Worked beautifully! Thank you for sharing this technique.
A good method to hide the shine of decal film: coat the area where you are going to place the decal with clear gloss coat. Once it dries apply your decal. After the decal dries apply a matt varnish / dullcoat clear coating.
A very helpful tutorial indeed! Hoping to have a go at renumbering some British Rolling stock soon. That Micro Sol really works a treat, that the old number off very well. Will certainly keep those products in mind. Keep up the great work
Nice video! I bought the stuff to renumber some of my locos a while ago but haven't gotten around it it yet as I want sure how to achieve it without messing it up. Thanks for the tips I'll have to try them out!
Nice tip! I found that if I just kept brushing the Miicro Sol over the letters/numbers on my Bachmann 0-6-0 till they started breaking up, they came off really easy. A couple of tiny specks remained but weren't difficult to remove.
I saw this 8 years later but what a great how to video. I can do that to remove decals on action figures I want to remove instead of what most youtubers recommend which is acetone (which could craze plastics)
Another way of doing it: Soapy water (really soapy), 2000 grit sand paper, and a flat edge to put the sand paper on tight with (preferably small so you can do the small places) soak the paper you're using in the soapy water, and put a little extra on the face you're sanding. Then gently (not a lot of pressure, at all. be very gentle or it'll ruin the finish of the paint) wet sand it. If it starts to dry out, soak the sandpaper again. I'll be posting a video soon.
Thanks for showing your technique! I'm not as afraid to try it now. You mentioned using the Krylon Krystal Clear. Is that a matte or gloss coat? Thanks! Deryk
DG Modelworks I was able to find Krylon flat finish at Walmart. Don't know if it was available when the video was made but it is on the store shelves now. Jim
Great video man. I have a question, it looks like each decal has a square area around it, does the square bit stay or does it somehow evaporate when the decal is being dried?
Great looking locomotive nice 👍 reminder don't forget the NS car's u want to send me last year 2017-18 can't remember. I want to put it in our model contest for October and November this year
No decals are better than Microscale - because you get to control the clear layer which eliminates excess clear film and you don't have to cut. There was too much clear left on the ShellScale decals; number 4 was too high on the left cab side. But, you need a fine job on explaining the decals steps - and you used Microscale solutions. Very good! BTW, ShellScale doesn't make light-able number board decals - Microscale does.
That's exactly what I did for my SD70M-2! Question though, what did you use for the EMD number boards? They have a smaller font and I ended up just using some slightly oversized number board decals.
Thanks for sharing this with us. Do you have any videos on how to custom paint? One thing I wanted to try for a while is custom paint and detail 2 LLPX gp38s so if you have any videos up it would really help. Btw I think you have an awesome layout.
What happened with the shadowing effect of the original road numbers? Did you apply more sol & tape off camera or did the complete drying of said sol diminish the shadowy look? Thanks for passing on the tip. - SP modeler out : )
Hi- thanks for the video tips. I couldn't make out the decals that you recommended. I got that what you use are better than Microscale, but what brand name are you recommending?
hey man does this work with rolling stock like passenger cars too? i plan on removing decals of l&n passenger cars and renumbering them to model the csx ocs
Many thanks for taking the time to share this technique! I don't know if this has been asked yet, but does this work with the same great results on a Proto 2000 Locomotive? I have a GP7 that is a duplicate number that I would rather keep and redo in another number rather than sell it. Thanks again! Darin
do you have to clear coat it ? like i asked early im getting a athearn 4-6-6-4 challenger steam loco and that's a lot of locomotive and tender to cover
Thank you for sharing this. I am probably gonna be talk about pretty bad,but i am gonna do this to a kato sd40-2 change the name and all. Tr ha k you for the info.
Wow you were Young when you did this!😂 How about Front Lighted Number Boards on an Atlas N Scale. Numbers just stuck on outside of lens. Same procedure?
In your video Micro set says on the front that it is a decal remover. But you use Micro sol to remove the decal from the locomotive. So witch one is to remove them? And which one is to make them stay in place?
The original numbers on the model aren't decals -- they're printed on. I've never tried removing decals, but Micro Sol seems to be much better at removing printed-on numbers than Micro Set.
Probably a dumb question but will this technic work to remove locomotive lettering? I have a few BNSF units that are stenciled for my railroad and I would like to remove the BNSF. Poor mans paint job lol.
I'm curious if you've encountered what I'm trying to figure out now. I have a P1K CN newsprint car with factory applied graffiti over the CN reporting marks, CN noodle. I'd like to remove the graffiti without messing up those nice CN reporting marks, logo, etc. Any suggestions ??
+Steve Hastings I am not an expert on the matter, but I would assume that it would be pretty much impossible. I've got a few of those pre-graffitied P1K CN newsprint cars too. They look okay once they've been weathered. If it's not a car I already have & you are interested, we could potentially swap as I have a few CN newsprint cars without graffiti new in box. Let me know if you're interested.
+Berubium I definitely might be interested. What are the road numbers you have ?? .....and how do we get in contact off line here ?? By the way, I finally gave up trying to remove the graffiti, I masked the parts I wanted gone and hit it with some primer and it came out much better than I expected. I only have to re-decal the bottom half of one CN noodle and some of the car data on the same side. Personally as graffiti is today's norm I model back a ways and graffiti isn't my thing.
***** Hi Josh. I admire the work you but I read about decaling that they adhere better to glossy surfaces. Did you apply them directly to the surface after removing the old number?
I have heard the same, however I have never had a problem with it. I always dull coat mine. I think the most important thing is just to make sure that you have some sort of coat over the paint, whether it be gloss or flat.
I tried to renumber my HO B23-7 3972 to 972 but I damn near took the 9s off too. . Anyone feel generous? Does the tape method work for the number- boards?
***** Great. Thanks for the tip. I have a fantasy railroad and the story I made up is that in the beginning we acquired older locos from other RRs in our region. The budget was tight so we just put our name and markings over the original logos. This would be much easier than having to strip and paint everything that we purchase.
How do you place the numbers so that they are aligned? It's a pity you took for granted that we know how to do that and you skipped that explanation. Well, I don't know!! I do appreciate your comments
I use this method and some others for just about all my models. It works on everything. Ive herd Kato engines can give some trouble but you just have to keep re-applying your sol until all the numbers come off. What I generally do for my steam engines when I do this is I sometimes take the blade of a hobby knife to assist in getting the numbers off.
Do you have another technique for this process. It does not work for N scale Kato, and Atlas models. Just asking. I don't know why it doesn't work but it doesn't. Peace to you and the family, and welcome home.
