Rubber stamp "decaling"

[Ralph]

I've applied a lot of Microscale Penn Central decals successfully, especially the rectangular "mating worms" logo. From time to time however I've had about a 25% to 50% failure rate with the smaller font letters of the full "Penn Central" name, accidentally wrinkling or tearing them. This gets annoying and ultimately expensive. I've had similar difficulties with home made decals for my Kings Port & Western freelance. The long thin decal strip with the railroad's full name often gets messed up when I try to apply it. I've also had my share of aggravations trying to color match the background of the decal with rolling stock so i can apply white lettering. Still, I want to create more cars for my own road, especially open hoppers.

I decided to try an experiment and risked $30 bucks buying two custom made rubber stamps and a white ink stamp pad from an online dealer. One had just the KP&W and the other was the full KINGS PORT & WESTERN

I did my first tests on a couple of flea market hoppers. The first with just the initials looked like this:

Not completely satisfactory. I wonder if this stamp will do better with black ink on light surfaces.

The full name on a hopper came out like this:


My third attempt, and the best, was on this C Liner shell:


I'm encouraged. I think it may be helpful to create a jig that will help me stamp reliably straight and on the same location for each car. Mistakes are easily wiped of with a damp paper towel if you clean them immediately. After a little time the ink dries.

I'll be adding Microscale freight car data and number decals later. I'll keep you posted on this idea....

Ralph