Ship lettering

[piperck]

Hello Shipmates,

 

A question on ship lettering. I need to place ship lettering on the transom of a model. The font size would be 22-24. I would like it superimposed on a plank across the transom. Can anyone suggest if letters can be bought for this or (shudder)do I carve these or perhaps scribe them onto the plank if superimposed cannot be done? Any suggestions would be great and thanks for any help.

 

Chris

[GuntherMT]

I found some dry-transfer letters at my local hobby store.  They are for model railroading, and they worked great for the lettering.  Of course your fonts will be limited to whatever they produce, so it depends on what you are looking for whether you will find something that works.

[KeithAug]

Hello Chris

 

You may find something here - http://www.becc.co.uk

[piperck]

Thank you for the replies. Does 3d Lettering exist that I can glue on and paint, or do modelers carve these out of a wood? Thanks for any help.

 

Chris

[mtaylor]

I bought some photo etch letters quite some time ago from Model Expo.  A quick Google for photo etch letters yields a number of hits.  

[KeithAug]

Chris - prompted by Marks comment I found photo etched brass letters at Cornwall Model Boats - I know they ship to the USA.

 

http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/scalelink-Letters.html

[Moxis]

Or you could draw your own texts for example with Coreldraw or any other artscript program, using their fonts or thousand others found in Internet, Resize the text and have somebody cut or carve it with laser from thin wood veneer, cardboard or thick paper. Paint the letters and glue into model.

[allanyed]

Chris

 

What vessel is your model?  For the actual British ships and many other nations the lettering was painted, not carved, if you want to stay with what they did in actual practice. There may be exceptions, but I am not aware of them.  There is a great little treatise on page 50 in Volume II of TFFM by David Antscherl.  The lettering normally followed the curve of the planking of the upper counter so the letters all lie at slightly different angles so stick-on lettering may not look right.

 

Allan

[piperck]

Hello All,

 

Thanks very much for the help. Yes, I should have simply Googled this. Allan, the ship model is the Toulonnaise, 19th century French. I will check Antscherl and thanks again for the help.

 

Chris

[JerryTodd]

Mine were a little larger than you might want, but I got gold dry-transfer lettering from Letraset in the UK.

 

http://www.letraset.com/products/90-Letraset-Transfers/

 

Edited July 8, 2016 by JerryTodd