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Tiger Moth Decals


GordonM

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Does anyone know of supplies of letters of a suitable size to do the new Airfix Tiger Moth? I’m after black suitable for the fuselage and underwing for Cambridge Aero Clubs G-AOEI and G-AHIZ, also the DH markings for the wheels if possible? 

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9 hours ago, GordonM said:

Does anyone know of supplies of letters of a suitable size to do the new Airfix Tiger Moth? I’m after black suitable for the fuselage and underwing for Cambridge Aero Clubs G-AOEI and G-AHIZ, also the DH markings for the wheels if possible? 

Like so many other people I too have savoured the pleasure of flying in Echo India. To that end I too would like to model it. I got so far as building the Airfix 72nd kit in yellow and silver but stalled at finding the right lettering for the registration. If someone ( Ray , Extra ) came up with specific products in 72nd , 48th and maybe even 32nd a ready market I believe does exist.

 

Keith

 

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Thats the problem the market for light civil stuff is a myth, civil letters just never sold. Early on in my range I did a range of sizes and colours and I have dumped loads of letter sheets which did not sell because sadly the old varnishes tended to yellow over time. I did them from 25 mm down to 2 mm in a generally suitable font.  They also had lots of G-A's on the sheets to balance the extra usage of these letters.  (Again there are no particular rules followed in Civilian fonts applied to aircraft, so there are huge variations in height, width, thickness ratios).

My old (late issue) Tiger kits in both scales do have the registration for G-AOEI , plus the wheel logo's, Tiger Club and DH badges on the sheets), so there must be loads in the spare decal boxes of people who usually built the military options.  I reissued a newer range a few years ago but the printing was at times poor. I couldn't even convert them into toilet paper.

 

I'm sure some will post affirmatives on BM.

 

John

 

 

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Surely with Airfix bringing out a mainstream kit there must be sufficient demand for basic black, white and possibly silver letters? The CAC badge is obviously a different matter, but as well as Tiger, there’s other civil aircraft kits around they could be used on? 

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2 hours ago, GordonM said:

Surely with Airfix bringing out a mainstream kit there must be sufficient demand for basic black, white and possibly silver letters? The CAC badge is obviously a different matter, but as well as Tiger, there’s other civil aircraft kits around they could be used on? 

Every year I go to SMW at Telford, I hear someone asking for 1930s alphabet civil letters decals for  1920s-30s civil aircraft  and those preserved today - de Havilland, Miles, Percival, Austers and others. Surely with very little artwork effort required, someone could print some decal sheets in the most popular colours in 'solid' and 'hollow' styles? I sent this suggestion to Hannants ( but they seem obsessed with only military aircraft decals), Fantasy Printshop (no reply), 26 Decals ( no reply), S&M decals (sniffy response) so just gave up. I would love some sheets of these!

 

Edited by AMB
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These are my last run of my civil decals used on the my 1:48th kit of the DH 60 Moth for my Stackton project. I think that they look reasonable as I build only for pleasure these days and with other larger one to one car projects underway I don't get as much time for modelling.

 

These decals were done specifically for 1930's aircraft with a lean towards the Moth family.

 

John

 

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Adding few thoughts into this discussion as a decal maker; it is indeed costly to make a range of different sizes, styles and colours of silk screen printed older British registration markings. Unfortunately there will not be enough sales to make that an economically attractive project. I offered a series of black (laser) and white (UV-ink) reg letter sets in different sizes at SMW Telford, but got only few sales. Another problem is that actually there are many different kind of lettering styles existing; just check the photos of DH Puss Moth in internet for example to see what I mean. To get the registration markings precisely right, they need to be made on order just for that specific subject. I can make one-off reg markings on order in what ever size, style and colour needed (even the letters outlined in silver/gold/white), but I can not afford keeping a whole range of different sizes/colours.

Cheers,

Mika

Arctic Decals

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Thanks for the heads up Mika. I intend to send some commisions to you when I finally get time to do some more modelling. I have a lot of projects to build including the DH TK.4 which you sent to me a little while ago. It was commisioned by Gordon from Perth.

 

Cheers

 

John

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Just a thought, I have done a few DIY decals for some my projects (and will be going do again on my York) using inkjet decal paper. It seems to work well with black and if printed onto white paper, colours, but would then require careful trimming. 

All you need is the right paper, a computer with some sort of document program, a printer and some gloss acrylic varnish and a bit of self belief. You can design your lettering, print out on to plain paper for fit, style etc and then print for real. Inkjet decals need to be sealed, or they run, and a couple of light coats of varnish sprayed on seems to work well. Too heavy a spray and the decal bleds, so a light touch is needed. I have used the Humbrol stuff out of a spray can. 

I'm 1/72nd scale the advantage is that font sizes come on points, if which they are 72 to the inch. Rescaling for 1/48 is fairly straightforward maths. This is the basics and there is a bit of variation between papers. I have used the stuff from Crafty Computer papers, but they appear to have gone bust and you might need to experiment with printer settings. It us quite satisfying though when it works. 

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1 hour ago, Mr T said:

Just a thought, I have done a few DIY decals for some my projects (and will be going do again on my York) using inkjet decal paper. It seems to work well with black and if printed onto white paper, colours, but would then require careful trimming. 

All you need is the right paper, a computer with some sort of document program, a printer and some gloss acrylic varnish and a bit of self belief. You can design your lettering, print out on to plain paper for fit, style etc and then print for real. Inkjet decals need to be sealed, or they run, and a couple of light coats of varnish sprayed on seems to work well. Too heavy a spray and the decal bleds, so a light touch is needed. I have used the Humbrol stuff out of a spray can. 

I'm 1/72nd scale the advantage is that font sizes come on points, if which they are 72 to the inch. Rescaling for 1/48 is fairly straightforward maths. This is the basics and there is a bit of variation between papers. I have used the stuff from Crafty Computer papers, but they appear to have gone bust and you might need to experiment with printer settings. It us quite satisfying though when it works. 

You make it sound relatively easy, I will give it a go. Just about to order some decal paper. 

 

Regards, gazza l

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I reckon if I can do it, most people can. The hardest part was the design and how to position the lettering so that you do not waste the decal paper. Not rushing it helps as well. I just used Word (although any of the equivalents will do) and as I build British military stuff found a couple of True Type fonts that were for post war  and wartime British aircraft. There are so many different fonts available, there is a good chance the registration letters can be matched and most programs allow some manipulation of the fonts for outline lettering. It can take awhile, but I think it is worthwhile. I am not expert on decal design, but I am sure there are plenty of people on here who have experience they could share. 

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For home-made decals, I scanned a colour slide of the actual aircraft I wanted to model in high resolution and cropped the registration letters, then printed them on to a sheet of Lazer decal paper. After printing with a lazer printer, I closely cut the letters out. So what I have are the actual font type letters from the real aircraft. The only issue is printing them to the right size so a few trial-and-error prints resulted.

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A trick that can come in handy, if you have a scanner, is to scan the kit parts at the same ratio as you print. I generally print at 300 dpi, so for a tailfin logo, for instance, one can scan the tailfin, then fit the artwork to the scanned part and it should print the right size.

 

Peter

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Another route worth thinking about is using a desktop/hobbyist vinyl cutter. There are a few around and prices probably soon start to become reasonable if you're considering doing a fair number of esoterically marked aircraft (I know civil registrations aren't exactly esoteric in real life, but they appear to be in the hobby).

 

Won't work for complex or tiny items, but will for many applications...

 

Matt

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On 4/6/2020 at 12:07 AM, dnl42 said:

I use Inkscape for drawing decals and masks. It's a vector program, so it can do almost anything you need. It's also a vector program, so it's not the simplest thing to learn.

I use Xara, as I've had it for years, having bought it back in 2000 for work. Not expensive, but Inkscape is free. 

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Of the figures I used in my little diorama only one is a commercial figure, it's the chap with his hands in his pocket. This I believe was from Czech Republic and it was painted by a friend and given to me  to restart my hobby modelling. The other figures are resin copies of my own creations.  

Leticia, the female pilot started off as a Monogram B.17 crewman and the proportions and shape have been much modified. Her head was from an ancient Aurora German pilot, again much changed and grafted onto the crewman. Her female shape was created by building up layers of cyano and the flying kit from plastic and etch brass buckles. The other mechanics were created in a similar way. 

 

They are all part of my Stackton Tressel 30's aerodrome project. 

 

John

 

 

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Xtradecals (available from Hannants) produce a 1/48 scale sheet of civil markings for the new Airfix Tiger Moth. Having seen photos of the sprues (I’m still waiting for my kit on back order) the DH logi on the wheel covers is molded in as a lightly raised detail to emulate the stamped logo on the real thing.  Careful painting will make this nice detail pop!

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