Page 66 - 38. MRH13-04-Apr2013
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Erie Railroad Boxcars, p1 - 10
STEP 3: Adding Rivets, rivets, and More Rivets
13
I discovered very quickly that placing the decal rivets is a lot
like decaling striping on a passenger car or locomotive. You
have to take your time to get and keep the decals straight. If
not, you will notice the crooked lines. My method for decal-
ing is to use a straight edge and a sharp X-Acto blade to cut
the decals from their sheet.
I began by decaling on the rivets across the top of the car
on the 1” x 6” piece of styrene. Use the closely spaced riv-
ets. Once these were set in place, I decaled the rivets across
the bottom of the car using the lower door guide as a refer-
ence point. I worked out from the door in both directions.
13: Thank goodness for Micro-Mark and their rivet
decals. If it were not for them or some other similar
product I seriously doubt that I would under take
this project.
STEP 3: Adding Rivets, rivets, and More Rivets
Continued ...
Having 4 car sides to work on gives you plenty to do while
the recently placed decals dry. As with any other of my
decal project, I use Walthers Solvaset to snug down the
decals. This stuff lasts forever. I have had the same bottle for
over 15 years and it still works like the first time I used it.
Next I began the vertical rivets. I cut strips to match the
lengths needed. The areas under the door and at the door-
stop are shorter than the rest of the car. Again I used the
closely spaced rivets. The rivets are placed 2” from the right
hand side of the scribed line. It's important to take time to
make sure that the rivets were straight and parallel with the
scribe seams.
Once some of the rivets have had time to set, I began decal-
ing on the wide spaced rivets that come with the set. These
represent rivets that are spaced at two times the distance of
the first lines of rivets. These were placed 6” away from the
rivets along the scribed line and on the outboard side of the
car, the side away from the door.
I discovered that it is easy to dislodge the rivet decals from
the raw styrene. It appears that there is very little for the
decal to bite into to and hold on. So before I went any fur-
ther, I sealed the sides with Floquil Crystal-Cote.
MRH-Apr 2013
