Woodland Scenics Model Graphics

I love cars, I love car games, and I love collecting Matchbox scale cars.  I've collected a handful of Matchbox highway patrols, and needed a way to make them easily differentiated from each other.  Numbers on the roofs of police cars is not unheard of, making them easily identifiable to air units.  A friend had success with some water slide transfers he had lying around, but unfortunately I didn't have that luxury.

I stopped by my local hobby shop for glue yesterday and decided to see what they had available for transfers.  I found these:

These are dry transfer decals, meaning you rub the graphics onto the surface you want to apply to, versus the waterslide or a sticker.  I've worked with dry transfer before, but was hesitant because of the high gloss surface of the Matchbox cars.  The pack was $7, so I thought I'd give it a try.

This particular pack is MG727 No. Gothic, R.R.- White.  As you can see the numbers come in a variety of sized.  Woodland Scenics makes other packs in different fonts, colors, and text.

Application is very simple, and detailed instructions are available on the back of the package.  I simply cut out a pair of numbers, removed the protective backing, lined it up on the roof of the police car, and burnished it with the end of a crochet needle.  You do need to hold the transfer in place to keep it from sliding around during application.  Also, the spacing of the numbers on the sheet were satisfactory to me so overall alignment of the transfers was easy.

The drawback to these numbers is they are kind of fragile.  I messed up a transfer, and easily scraped the part that did adhere with my nail.  A sealant is highly recommended.

It looks like I have a few Dodge tampos to remove from these cars.  This is easily done with a cotton swab soaked in a bit of non- acetone nail polish remover gentry rubbed over the tampo, then dried with a clean swab.