1/18 scale number plates

[GavinT]

After getting some useful tips on here I set about making my own plates for a few of my 1/18 collection. I found a website that allows you to design your own show plates (for real cars obviously). I wanted to keep them as real as possible, so found images of the real cars showing the number plate; e.g. Ferrari 288 GTO with B656KNH, made them up on the website and then did a screen shot. After that its just a case of trim and resize using Photoshop, then I printed them out on glossy photo paper. To stick them to the cars I used a thin double sided, padded sticky tape stuff. I think to go any smaller, say for 1/32 models it would be a struggle, as for my printer at least, I think I'm reaching the limits of how fine a detail you can print. The lettering has come out fine, but the smaller GB logo's in the blue edges of the plates are blurred out. I used the same technique for the plates to make some new Ferrari logo's for my GTO, the originals being lost when I sanded the body down and did a resto job on it. I'm very pleased with the results, I'm now in the process of making British plates up for a few of my other cars.

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[yak face]

Great ingenuity gavin, youre obviously a lot more computer literate than me!!! i wouldnt know where to start. Ive often wondered about using a printer to make your own decals using the printable decal paper but im just not clever enough (plus i havent got a printer DOH!) cheers tony

 

[GavinT]

I never thought of using printable decal paper lmao! Double doh!

Saying that the number plates are glossy as they should be, and the padded sticky tape gives them a slightly raised profile, like a real plate is. For future replacement decals though I might have to buy myself some printable decal paper, would be a lot less fiddly than how I did the Ferrari logos -glossy photo paper with regular double sided tape. Might re-do those I think.

Thanks Gav