PDC decals

The IAIS in my era had no revenue equipment that wasn't acquired or leased secondhand and then patched, and only a couple pieces of MOW equipment that were fully repainted, so my original request to Bill was to create simple IAIS stencil marks in both black and white, plus NOKL and IATR marks for leased cars that IAIS controlled on paper, and CLAX marks for cars that were common on the railroad in my era.  I supplied Bill with a number of photos so he had examples of the appropriate letters and all 10 digits, and thought we were essentially done, ready to print decals.  I asked Bill for his guidance on whether we could do better than the original artwork, but didn't expect more than a few minor tweaks.

From those pics, Bill pointed out a different font used on some IAIS cars, as shown below (yellow marks on the prototype cars are the result of the artwork creation process - decals are the correct colors):

Original:

IAIS Font #2 with the wider "A":

That exercise led to both Bill and I digging in for a more detailed review and ​finding a great number of variations in marks across the roster, many of which, if I was doing this alone, I likely wouldn't have noticed until the time came to model them.  We ended up with 8 distinct IAIS versions, 7 NOKLs, and 2 CLAXs.  While all that artwork had a cost, I believe I saved money and time in the end by identifying all these up front rather than going back repeatedly for additional custom sets.

Here are a couple glimpses of portions of the completed order showing some of that variety, including a number of custom pieces Bill did to allow me to model some of the more interesting secondhand cars on the IAIS roster. 

Now that Bill has the artwork done, all of these should be available for additional custom orders through PDC for just the price of printing.  I highly recommend him, as he was easy to work with, very flexible, and did an outstanding job reproducing these, sometimes from very poor photos.

If you're ordering anything where Bill already has the artwork (like the sets above, in part or whole) or you can provide it, he can print and ship right away.  For anything requiring new artwork, I know he's pretty far behind (and probably worn out from this exercise) , but the results are well worth the wait.  Inquiries should be directed to billy@pdc.ca or via his site at  http://pdc.ca/rr/custom_decals/ .

Thanks for all your work Bill!  This was a fun project for me.

Thanks Joe!

It was a challenging project, but I enjoy that kind of thing!

I would like to clarify this statement a bit; "If you're ordering anything where Bill already has the artwork..."

Joe has graciously offered the art he paid for to be sold as decals to other interested modellers. I am very happy to do that, but I do not offer reprints of art my clients have commissioned without my clients permission.

Artwork

I'm glad you clarified that Bill.  Personally, if I'm going to pay for artwork, I'd rather see it put to use benefitting others than just gathering dust, but I understand that not everyone may feel the same, and I shouldn't have assumed that they would.

I can vouch for PDC

I have also had custom decals done by PDC and heartily agree about the quality of his work.  I doubt that anyone else has much interest in Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting 70 Tonner locomotives, but if anyone is interested in a set let me know and I'll set  you up...

Marc Simpson

A Double Vouch for PDC

I had Bill do some decals for the Great Western Railway (Northern Colorado, not England) and he did a fantastic Job. The GW used various styles over the years for their steam engines and Bill did a fantastic job on all of them.  He even added some GW caboose decals to make good use of the sheet size. See my blog entry for examples and details. https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/the-great-western-steam-engine-fleet-12206919

I would highly recommend Bill. If anyone else is doing GW steam engines, you are welcome to have Bill reprint some for you.

A thrid vouch for Bill

I've had Bill to about 5 sets of decals for me. All turned out great & will order more from him.

David

Bill did some amazing decals

Bill did some amazing decals for me as well. 

Amazing work once again

Well done research and production. Bill is first class craftsmanship in all areas. 

Cost?

So what did the artwork cost in general terms?  Are we talking under $100 or over $100?  What does a sheet of decals cost?  It looks like its a 8.5x11 sheet.  Is it per color or per sheet?  Is there any break if your decal artwork might have commercial value as a "stock" decal set?

Cost

Hi Dave - Bill said he would normally charge about $15 per design for artwork.  Printing is $35 for a half page and $50 for a full page.  Bill and I didn't talk about any discounts for the reuse, but I put him through a lot of unexpected rework, so I'm pretty sure I came out ahead.  And Bill is mostly still talking to me, so there's that. 

Reasonable

Thanks Joe, that sounds very reasonable for custom decals and especially the artwork.

Since there really aren't any decal makers other than Westerfield for my era, I will probably have to resort to having some made for me.

Bill can do it.

I have so much fun thinking of ways that Bill's decals can help my modeling. Right now I have itty bitty decals for the sides of pallets on the way.......

Here's a few examples of Bill's decals.