Number Boards for #5305

Well, progress continues on NWP SD9 #5305. Today, I put the number boards on #5305. I used a system I recently learned about from an internet site. This system was created by John Sing.

Easy N Scale Locomotive Number Boards

Basically, I made a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet where I typed in "5305" seveal times in three different font sizes (#6 / #7 / #8). I used Century Font as this font resembles the Southern Pacific (NWP) number lettering style. I blacked out the background of the cells using "black" and changed the font color to "white." I then printed the spreadsheet on printing lable sheets from Avery. I went out to the garage where I have been working on my HO scale model of #5305. I took the clear plastic number boards and compared them to the three font sizes I printed out. Of the three, Font Size #7 appeared to work the best. I carefuly cut the number boards from the sheet using an Xacto knife. I then peeled the baking tape off the rear of the label and then stuck the number board to the clear plastic.

I was very surprised how easy this method of doing number boards was. I do not like having to paint the clear plastic and then using decals, especially on locomotivs that require individual numbers to be placed on one at a time. The Microscale NWP deal set allows you to place all four numbrs on at the same time, but this system appeared to go a lot quicker.

Surprisingly, the shipping label system still allows light to shine through the number boards. This is a plus because I plan to have operational directional lighting on my SD-9's. I will most likely continue to use this method for the number boards on my other NWP Athearn blue box SD-9 kits.