If you want your model railroad to capture a prototypical look it needs a lot of signs. Next time you are out walking or driving in either the city or the country, pay particular attention to the signs posted on streets, highways, parking lots, etc. In a few blocks, you will see hundreds of you take the time to look for them.
I like to make my own signs. It is very easy and inexpensive and allows you to create pretty much any sign you want, in any size.
These are the steps I follow:
- Consider what signs you would like to see in your particular scene (stop, yield, slow, turns, handicap parking, PPE require, muster point, do not enter, private property, and the list goes on).
- Do an internet search to determine, for standard signs, the prototype dimensions of your sign. These can be quickly found online. If in doubt, take your measuring tape with you the next time you are out.
- Calculate the dimensions of your sign appropriate to the scale of your model railroad. For example, say the highway sign you are modelling is 100 centimetres (39 inches) by 60 centimetres (24 inches). If you are modelling in HO the ratio is 1:87. Simply divide the above dimensions by 87 which results in 1.15 cm (.45 inches) by 0.69 cm (0.27 inches).
- Search the sign you are looking for on Google or Bing and save the image as a jpeg file.
- Open your favourite word processing software. I use Microsoft Word. Create a new document then, under the insert menu at the top of the screen, select shapes and then "new drawing canvas". Adjust the "handles" on the perimeter of the drawing canvas to be large enough to accommodate all the signs you want to work with.
- With the cursor clicked inside the drawing canvas, still under the insert menu at the top of the screen select "Pictures" from the ribbon and locate the jpeg file you saved in step 4.
- Double click on the image. At the top right of the ribbon, you will see choices labelled "size". These include the "crop" feature as well as the horizontal and vertical measurements of the image. Type in dimensions of your desired printed sign dimensions.
- You can stop here and print the one sign or repeat the process as many times as you wish to create many different signs.
- Insert glossy photo quality paper into your colour printer. Print the page using "best" quality and "colour" and ensure that the correct type of paper has been selected in your printer settings.
- Using spray adhesive, following the directions on the can, fasten the page to the dull side of a piece of aluminum foil large enough to cover the area behind all of the sign images. Leave this to dry overnight (it takes some time to dry because the aluminum foil doesn't "breath" and photo quality paper also has a fairly rigid surface to it). Following is an example of what the project looks like at this stage:
- Roughly cut out each of the sign images with scissors.
- Using a fresh single-edge razor blade carefully cut around each sign, ensuring that the cut goes cleanly through both the paper and the foil. It is good to use a self-healing mat for this and to press down on the razor blade to make the cut rather than dragging the blade across the surface.
- Determine how high your sign is to be above the layout surface and cut appropriate styrene or wood pieces the desired length, allowing for room to fasten into the surface in a small hole. Standard sign heights can also be found quite readily online or again by measuring a prototypical sign and scaling the distance down to your modelling dimensions. I like to use either 4 inch X 4 inch or 6 inch X 6 inch styrene for this, depending on the sign.
- Fasten the sign to the post (or directly to the side of a building, if appropriate) using appropriate adhesive. I like canopy glue for this because it sticks almost anything and has no odor. You can use cyanoacrylate but I stay away from this unless absolutely necessary because I suffer severe sneezing and extreme runny nose between 6 and 10 hours after using CA glue - usually in the middle of the night, which is most unpleasant!
- If you want to make your own custom signs, follow the steps above but at the step where I say to insert a picture into the drawing canvas, insert a text box. Type your wording in the text box using your desired font. Adjust the background colour and the font colour and proceed using the same instructions as above.
Here are a few of the completed signs.
