I need a PC Font to make custom Serial no. masks for a B17

I am aware there are Decal sets for the tail serial Nos (borrowed some) but as I have a need to complicate things, the tail cose isn't in black

I've been asked to Custom Paint a B17, btw... (not entirely unrelated to the Lighting request).

TiA

Jon,
I print a lot of my own decals, and so far haven't found any basic computer fonts that match the WWII USAAC fonts of the era. Some come close, but you'd need to screen most of them for suitability. There was a company a few years ago that sold "military style" fonts, but I dont know if they are still in business. I have both MS Word and Powerpoint fonts, but again, haven't found any perfect matches. And printing a yellow tail number for laying over a green paint scheme is almost impossible, unless you are using a laser printer. On the other hand Microscale decals has an entire selection of USAAC WWII style fonts in various colors that would do nicely. There are other decal making techniques you can also use-- applying dry transfers to decal paper, or lightly printing and hand lettering on decal paper with enamel or acrylic inks (if you have steady hands) and then coating with decal solution is another method. By the way-- if you are printing with a bubble jet printer, make sure you flat coat the paper first--the ink won't thin and run off that way, and depending on your printer, you can run the printed decals through several times for a deeper color (except for yellow--which just doesn's deepen much and becomes translucent-- for those I usually carefully hand paint over the top). You didn't mention what scale or the color of the tail numbers (I'm assuming yellow).
VR, Russ

Thankyou for your informative reply. B17's aren't my natural territory .

The tail Serial no's are for a 1/48th B17F in pale - mid green.

I intend to get them Cri-cut as masks, or if you know of suitable decals?

The Original was a de-turreted hack/assembly ship in mid green with light green.

Jon,
Most B-17F assembly ships were older aircraft that started out thier careers in the olive drab over neutral gray colors. As such thier tail numbers would have been painted in yellow in all likelihood. However many were striped of paint and thier numbers repainted in black. I recommend going to the Microscale web site and taking a look at thier selection of letters and numbers in 1/48 scale-- you'll likely find what you need.


Look here for some 1/48 B-17F decals:
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=MS48-1058&Category_Code=MILITARY

And here for some generic "gothic" letters and numbers which would probably work:
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=90056&Category_Code=ALPHA

The latter are HO Railroad letters and numbers, but they come in a variety of sizes, which may work for you, I recommend you scroll through thier product line to see if any others would also work-- for thier alphabet line, you want the "gothic" letters, in HO scale, N is way too small for 1/48th scale. There are many different combinations of letters and numbers.
VR, Russ