Markings

For me it sort of depends on what I am marking.  My hand is not nearly steady enough to draw reporting marks and have them look halfway decent.  That said, I've had great success using dry transfers on bare wood.  For more random chalk marks and weathering, I use oil paints and very fine brush, toothpick or even a sewing needle. 

I wonder if you could cut a mask and either stipple paint or spray paint. 

Good luck and let us know what works for you.

Homemade decals

Hand lettering is very tough to do, especially for the smaller markings in HO scale.

My suggestion would be to get some decal paper, then hand letter on the decal paper and apply them as decals.  It will be way easier to do small lettering on a flat surface on a table than on the side of a wood car on the wood surface.

A lot of the early cars were lettered with an ink pen or paint and an ink pen (and by "ink pen" I mean those that are a nib that you dip in an inkwell).

Thanks for the replies.  I

Thanks for the replies.  I should have mentioned that the cars are late 1800s or early 1900s era with truss rods, if it makes a difference.  So I would envision the prototypes to be hand painted to start with.  Will be using them to haul pulpwood loads.  

Dave,  if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting hand drawing white on clear decal paper?  Where would one find this clear decal paper/

Thanks

Jim

Lettering

Most cars in the 1800's, early 1900's were lettered with stencils. 

Clear decal paper can be bought from Micro Mark and lots of other places on the internet or Amazon.

  "I have seen pictures of

I've had some nicely done hand lettered cars over the years. Most were O scale and looked like they were done with a fine brush. Only a few of those old boys could do a really great  hand lettering job. Most of the older modelers used pre painted sides with printed lettering. I'd suggest using decals or dry transfers these days , a lot faster and easier :> ) .   For hand lettering graffiti and such I use sharpies and gel pens( gel pen lettering will smear if it gets wet so needs to be overcoated with dull coat) . ...DaveB

You'll need a steady hand if you letter HO cars

Dry transfer on the wood Cars in HO or smaller will make life easier for you as nobody likes messing up a fine model with uneven and out of shape little painted or drawn on numbers and letters unless you're really good at hand lettering.

You could make or buy lettering stencils to use as a base for a lettering option and then when you remove the stencil you can carefully Paint or pencil in the spaces covered by the stencil frame. If you go to a craft store you can find some very small stencils.

What ever you decide and if hand lettering is what your going to do practice on paper first to get the sizing to the scale you want, Then get some Transfer Paper from the art store and cut a piece to fit the car sides and then lay your drawing on the transfer and trace over the drawing thus placing a light copy on your car side that will work as a paintable hand lettering guide.

If you have a printer you can print copies and photos of cars and then place them over the transfer paper on the car side and carefully draw the lettering wanted from actual cars and then still painted by you.

OH yeah I wouldn't use the blue/black copy paper from multi copy sales books that ink bleeds through both Oil and Acrylic Paint I found out the hard way years ago. I bought a Transfer paper Sampler That came with 5 sheets of 5 different colors (white, Graphite, Yellow, Blue and Red so no mater what my car color is I have a transfer paper that will show up on all cars by using a darker or lighter color as needed to see on the car for painting.

The Transfer Paper I use is made by a company called "SARAL" The Saral transfer paper is WAX Free and designed for wood , Canvas and fabric and It works well on plastics too.

 Good luck and steady hands

Dan,   Would you have any

Dan,  

Would you have any pictures you have taken of examples you have used the SARAL transfer paper on?  This looks like it might be my best option.  

Thanks

Jim

Compromise?

 It might be best to get some commercial transfers or decals for the basic car data then try your hand at lettering the custom road lettering you want. Old time car data should be available from Clover House, Microscale, or others....DaveB

Thanks for the replies.  I

Thanks for the replies.  I have already completed one car and have 4 more on the building board.  The first was a trial run to finalize my design.  I used a Tichy flat car decal sheet for it.  But would seem to be a bit pricey to do 4 more.   I'll try to post some pics of it.  

I have also been debating starting a blog on my railroad.  How interested are you guys in following construction blogs?  I work slow as my time is limited and I like to operate more than build.

Jim   

Are you sure it was hand

Are you sure it was hand drawn and not rubber stamped ? You can get clear rubber stamps fairly inexpensively.