How To Make a Roll Sign

Since we have one of the impressive sign boxes from the Lake Shore Electric for our #150, it would be nice to have a repro roll sign to put in it.  Not all of the mechanism is in place, so a single destination will be sufficient.  Buzz Morrisette did the hard parts of fixing up my art work and actually producing the lettering.  Tim gave me some useful advice on applying the letters and so on, since he's done this before.  And complete roll signs for the 24 are being made even as we speak.

 

 This is what we want it to look like, as seen on identical car 143 at Sandusky, although this is the sign for the eastbound run.

Buzz actually made two sets of letters for me, but the first one worked fine, so I still have a set in reserve.  The letters are stuck to a sheet of brown backing paper, then the clear transfer paper is laid over that.  The first trick is to peel the backing paper away, leaving the letters stuck to the transfer paper, and then press them onto the roll sign material.   Tim says it's used for making book covers.

To get the letters to line up, it's good to draw some pencil lines on the canvas, where they will be covered with paint.

After all three lines are applied, it looks like this. 

Then we take it out to the garage and spray paint it with flat black.  After it dries, we can start the process of peeling the letters away.

If we work slowly and carefully, the unpainted parts of the canvas will reveal the secret message.

And finally, it looks like this.

 And here it is installed in the sign box in my basement.   Just like downtown!   Now I need to repaint the box itself, but that's pretty straightforward.  Thanks, Buzz!