MTL Milw SD40-2's

[Sokramiketes]

Is there a good reason that the numbers arn't on the dynamic brake blister?

[wcfn100]

It would probably double the price of the locomotive. 


Jason

[wazzou]

Should be.

[tom mann]

It should be, but I can't complain about it too much, as I have to make placards for the AZL hopper from last month!

[Mark5]

Looks cool. I always loved the MILW scheme for some reason.

On my monitor the black looks brown, its really black right?

Mark

[Robbman]

It should be, but I can't complain about it too much, as I have to make placards for the AZL hopper from last month!

What's putting placards on a AZL hopper have to do with MT not knowing where to put a pad print hit?

[sirenwerks]

Is there a good reason that the numbers arn't on the dynamic brake blister?

Shaking my head... the Milwaukee's not a primary interest of mine but I do keep my eye on it, and the number misplacement is a considerable and somewhat callous mistake.

[tom mann]

It should be, but I can't complain about it too much, as I have to make placards for the AZL hopper from last month!

What's putting placards on a AZL hopper have to do with MT not knowing where to put a pad print hit?

I was just pointing out that in Z scale, a little bit of work must be done "out of the box".

[wazzou]

It should be, but I can't complain about it too much, as I have to make placards for the AZL hopper from last month!

What's putting placards on a AZL hopper have to do with MT not knowing where to put a pad print hit?

I was just pointing out that in Z scale, a little bit of work must be done "out of the box".

Funny...not all that long ago, that is exactly what was said about N Scale and yet look how far both scales have come.

[Robbman]

It should be, but I can't complain about it too much, as I have to make placards for the AZL hopper from last month!

What's putting placards on a AZL hopper have to do with MT not knowing where to put a pad print hit?

I was just pointing out that in Z scale, a little bit of work must be done "out of the box".

Ahh... so you're saying that it's OK for manufacturers to charge you out the a$$ becuase it's Z scale and then offer you mediocre products with easily fixable flaws... hmmm... starting to see why manufacturers are liking this scale.  Not trying to be mean or anything... but a gaffe is a gaffe... regardless of scale.

[DKS]

... starting to see why manufacturers are liking this scale.

Another way of saying it is that they're liking the scale because there are proportionately fewer "Skibbes" in it.

Not defending or criticizing... just an observation.

[Gozer the Gozerian]

Yes, after numerous attempts and several modified print heads it was determined the angle and constricted space made it impossible to print cleanly.  We were getting too much distortion of the numbers and ghosting on the surrounding surfaces.   In this case the the head is shaped like a rounded cone and as the head makes contact it forms to the surface and leave the image.  Because the number was on a small, uneven surface, with a projecting surface right below it...not to mention the Laundry shoot just below and to the left of the surface, it was causing the print head to misform.  So, the number was printed where it was printed and was not a gaffe or a callous mistake.  The only other choice was to throw in decals but that went over like a lead ballon on the passenger cars.

Joe
MTL

Is there a good reason that the numbers arn't on the dynamic brake blister?

[Chris333]

So since I know nothing about this I found:

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Does the pad need to be cleaned often? Is there a squeegee that wipes the plate at each pass?

Also how does white ink work? and why can't we put it in printers.

We have mixing white ink at work, but have not used it since I've been there.

Our press is an "offset press" so the plate is inked up, then transfered to a rubber coated blanket cylinder, then transfered to the paper. Kind of seems like what you are doing, your pad is our blanket. We wash the paper lint off the blankets at the end of the run each day.

This isn't ours, but it is the same brand:

[DKS]

So since I know nothing about this I found:

/>
Does the pad need to be cleaned often? Is there a squeegee that wipes the plate at each pass?

Also how does white ink work? and why can't we put it in printers.

We have mixing white ink at work, but have not used it since I've been there.

Our press is an "offset press" so the plate is inked up, then transfered to a rubber coated blanket cylinder, then transfered to the paper. Kind of seems like what you are doing, your pad is our blanket. We wash the paper lint off the blankets at the end of the run each day.

This isn't ours, but it is the same brand:

/>

I used to manage an offset print shop, and I serviced offset presses for a while. The two processes seem similar, but they're very different from the standpoint of how much ink is applied.

Pad printing starts with images that are physically etched into the metal plate. These wells hold quite a lot of ink, comparatively*, which is smeared on, and the excess is literally scraped away with a steel blade (some use a special pad to wipe away the excess). The ink left in the wells is then transferred via the pad to the object. There may be other pad printing techniques; this is what I am familiar with.

In offset printing, the ink is deposited on the rubber blanket through a process that takes advantage of the fact that oil and water don't mix. The image on the plate is water-resistant, so it is ink-receptive; the rest of the plate is water-receptive, so the ink won't stick. (That's why you apply both ink and water to the plate.) The blanket is used to transfer the ink from the plate to the paper because the paper would quickly destroy the plate if they came into direct contact. The layer of ink delivered to the paper is microscopic compared to the amount stored in the physically-etched image on a pad printer plate, and so offset printers simply cannot apply enough ink to be opaque.

Most inks used in offset printing are semi-translucent as it is. Four-color process printing uses yellow, cyan and magenta inks as subtractive primaries to produce full color, and black is added because the colored inks are not dense enough to create convincing dark tones. White ink in offset printing is used mostly to adjust the color of inks for custom spot matches, as opposed to applying a white image on a dark background.

*Even then, for a good solid white or light color, it may require multiple hits.

[Robbman]

So, the number was printed where it was printed and was not a gaffe or a callous mistake. 

Joe
MTL

You put the number in the wrong spot, regardless of why you had to do it... that's still a gaffe.

not to mention the Laundry shoot just below and to the left of the surface, it was causing the print head to misform

 If the blower duct was causing the head to misform when the number was on the dynamic brake blister, how did moving the head LOWER, right BESIDE the blower duct, not cause it to misform?