Decals for Railway Carriage Curtains
O gauge (7mm) Mk1 coach with plain orange curtains.
Suggested design of decal support, to be made from plastic sheet and strip (not included with the decals).
These decals are for creating curtains for railway carriages. A variety of different colours are available, together with a choice of "fabric" patterns, and shading to simulate folding of the fabric is also included. The fabric patterns currently available are (see below for samples):
- Plain (i.e. no pattern as such),
- Open check, at 2 in intervals,
- Two-colour checkerboard, at 4.3 in intervals.
The decals have been designed to fit a scale widow size of 48 (w) x 40 (h) inches – approximately the size of a BR Mk1 standard coach window – with a 3 inch overlap at the side and 6 to 12 inch overlap top and bottom (varies with scale, and more overlap is provided at the bottom. Two basic curtain shapes are provided, to represent curtains that have either been tied back or left loose, and 7 different sizes of each are supplied, together with their mirror-images (for use on the reverse of a double-sided curtain, or to create opposite-handed pairs). The curtain shapes have been simplified by using straight edges to make cutting-out (especially of the supports) easier.
Two of each decal are included, so that each set provides sufficient decals for up to 14 windows (7 tied-back and 7 loose) with double-sided curtains (i.e. using 4 decals per window). To create even greater variety, different sizes and shapes of curtain can be fitted on each side of a particular window.
Cutting guide marks are provided to allow these decals to be adjusted to different window sizes and/or degrees of overlap beyond the window edges. The long guide marks denote the designed window aperture edges; the smaller marks are provided at scale 3 in intervals.
The decals have been designed to be supported on pieces of plastic sheet cut to the same shape and mounted just inside the window, attached to either the glazing or the coach side by means of spacing strips so that the "curtains" do not touch the glazing. A sheet material of 20 thou (0.5mm) thickness should be sufficient, except perhaps for the largest scales. A suggested form of support is shown in the adjacent diagram. Depending on how you fit your glazing, the strips can be arranged to fit snugly around the edge of the glazing material (although the glazing will need to be fitted with a consistent overlap around the window aperture). Decals should be applied to both sides of the support to give the correct internal appearance; any excess support visible beyond the edges of the decals can be painted the same colour as the carriage walls (probably best done before applying the decals to the support).
These decals can be supplied in a variety of scales, from 2mm to 16mm, and come on white-backed waterslide decal paper. To help with the production of the supports, each set of decals also includes extra curtains printed on plain paper (at least one of each shape and size), that can be cut out and used as templates for cutting the plastic sheet.
Available colours (plus white, not shown).
Plain Curtains
Open-checked Curtains
Two-colour Checkerboard Curtains
The ties of the tied-back curtains will be supplied in the primary colour.
Sample curtain decals in 7mm scale printed on plain paper: tied and untied curtain shapes in plain dark orange, dark orange check and mid-blue/white checkerboard.