Jim,
The boxes look great. What powder company are you leaning toward for the decals?
Dan: I was thinking DuPont. Something that has some red in it and not just black/white text.
btw, Dan, I’ll be open in September for the BAGRS regional tour…
Next you will need this
for now …
More beautiful work, Jim!
[edit]
For decals you might consider buying a crate from ebay (there’s lots of 'em!) and photo the sides and use that as trace-over artwork…
https://www.ebay.com/itm/113088032952
https://www.ebay.com/itm/352427271231
Of course, I’m mostly kidding.
But now you’ve got my head messed up over this… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
It turns out that Boomer seems willing to send me some high resolution artwork (as he posted in his extremely useful post about prototype dynamiting [link]).
The image Boomer posted is reasonably low resolution but is otherwise perfect. He says that he may be able to help me so I’m waiting with bated breath.
(edited for minor typo)
I’d totally missed Boomer’s great writeup, thanks Jim, and thanks Boomer!
Jim here is your answer regarding the graphics. Hope it works for you. A Poor Man’s Guide To Making Decals And Graphics
That should work perfectly. I’ll post the results when I get done with this weekend trip I’m on… Tough duty going to Pismo Beach…
Booomer showed how he used PowerPoint to create his TNT decals, and graciously shared higher resolution versions [link]. I am no longer on PC’s and, since I work at YouTube/Google, I’m now using Google apps, notably Sheets, instead of PowerPoint.
Just fyi, here’s a screenshot of me using sheets to size the images that Boomer posted to the correct print size for the boxes I made (which are .5 inches by .75 inches):
You can bring up the menu on the right by “right” clicking on a rectangle you have drawn (control-click on a mac), then it is possible to exactly set the size of the box in inches. Then I scale the bitmap image so it fits nicely in the box.
At that point I will copy/paste it a bunch of times, no need to copy the rectangle, so I get enough copies for the boxes I’ve made. When I return from my trip I’ll see if I can do this and will post pictures of the final boxes.
On hand I have normal paper size decals, not the smaller Tensor ones. I’ll need to find some of those so I can waste less next time.
Cheers!
Oops. It occurred to me while hanging out with my family (don’t tell them!) that the bitmaps that Boomer supplied are not transparent (JPG can’t be as it just doesn’t support transparency). So it will end up printing white on the decal. Bummer. I double checked this now that I’m back by adding a solid color behind them in Sheets, and sure enough, they are opaque white.
However, there’s a quick fix. I searched for online services to add transparency to a bitmap, “edit bitmap transparency online,” and found LunaPic [link] that was super easy to use. It ends up generating a PNG type file which does support transparency. I’ve added that to the sheets so you can see that it is indeed transparent:
OK, now I can copy these puppies around and print!
(edited for a typo)
I am confused. Unless you have a printer that has white ink (like the Alps), you cannot print white onto a decal sheet anyway. So white and transparent should be the same thing on a consumer type printer.
For those if you need a white background they sell white decal sheets as well as transparent (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
I think you are right. My bad. What I did doesn’t hurt but is unnecessary. Sheesh!
Jim Rowson said:
I think you are right. My bad. What I did doesn’t hurt but is unnecessary. Sheesh!
Relax. Print on clear plastic for your show room windows, now you have ‘just what you need’, but of course you already did…
No bad, it was your time to burn, no?
Don’t forget that red fades rather quickly unless your Bay fog rolls in. Don’t put those dynamite boxes out until about a week or two before the show.
Made a little progress this weekend. Got the dynamite boxes done (thanks Boomer, and all who gave me advice here)! Took me a little while to figure out that I needed decal bonder. Doh!
Also this weekend, got the platform, steps, some planking on the mine-level trestle, and lights wired into the landscaping system on a timer. So I got out the good camera and took a few shots when the light was down enough to see things:
Cheers!
I bet a diluted Tite Bond III could weigh down your rope for a more natural sag until it dries.
Coffee or tea make nice hemp rope stains.
I do worry about your coastal fog and those sticks being exposed …(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Just plain cool!
Absolutely beautiful!