German Serial Font?

Rowan Broadbent · 3 March 2006, 06:59 AM

Following on from the Alps printer thread, I hav been trying to find a font in MS Word which would match, or at least approximate to, the aircraft designation and serial numbers and the weight tables seen on German Aircraft.

Has anyone looked at this before?

As they were all (seemingly) hand painted was there an Idflieg "standard" for lettering style and size?

Did styles differ markedly between manufacturers?

I will also post this on the Markings forum.

I thought that if I could identify a reasonable match, then producing lettering on an inkjet direct onto decal film might be a possibility and I would also be able to get some light blue for Roland produced machinery.

The other good thing would be that this could be emailed to anyone else who wants specifc lettering and provided they have a colour inkjet, production would be straight forward.

I would imagine that the printed letters would need sealing with a decal film before application.

Has anyone else tried this?

Pat Daily · 3 March 2006, 11:21 AM

Rowan

This is my first post--just joined! I also was looking for fonts for my Pfalz DIIIa and this link is what I think might work.
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_18...tm.htm#1867778

Hope it helps.

Pat Daily

Dan_San_Abbott · 3 March 2006, 11:32 AM

Pat Dailey:
The serial numbers and data marcking was hand painted by the professioal painter hired for that purpose. Some were stencils. Every factory had a different font. That would be quite a project. I have treated it in a unpublished study on German markings. howeever it only applied to Albatros and the various companies that made Albatros designed aircraft under license
from Albatros and Idflieg.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

Pat Daily · 3 March 2006, 11:51 AM

Thanks Dan-San

So it looks like we are on our own--the font that I linked to is probably good enough for my model--I will prbably crash it before anyone figures it out!

Pat

Rowan Broadbent · 3 March 2006, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pat Daily

Rowan

This is my first post--just joined! I also was looking for fonts for my Pfalz DIIIa and this link is what I think might work.
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_18...tm.htm#1867778

Hope it helps.

Pat Daily

Hello Pat, welcome!

I think someone over on the WWI Modeling site forum saw your post and suggested this site:

http://www.myfonts.com/

I have only just started wading through it but there seem to be a number of German fonts from pre WWI - some look very promising!

From what Dan has said, each factory seems to have its own font - oh what fun!!!

From a modelling point of view I'm sure that I could find some good ones on this site - but they are not free, unfortunately. I have no idea how one uses fonts like this once purchased, do they just drop into MS Word? Need to find out more!

Coincidental that we both raised the font question at the same time!

If I narrow down any of these fonts I will post here.

Rowan

Pat Daily · 3 March 2006, 03:45 PM

Thanks Rowan

I will keep checking. I build parkflyer electric scale planes and am getting ready to paint my 41 inch Pfalz.

Pat

buzz1941 · 3 March 2006, 04:45 PM

What specific serial are you trying to do?

Rowan Broadbent · 3 March 2006, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buzz1941

What specific serial are you trying to do?

Happy Birthday!

Not sure if the above was aimed at me or Pat! but I am looking to produce serials and weight tables for a Roland D VIb with a multi-coloured camouflaged fuselage as well as a Roland-produced Halberstadt CLIV in a similar finish.

As yet I have no specific serial number in mind. Both would have had the data and serials in light blue, as I understand it.

These are both a few builds down the way and at my rate of production and butterfly approach to new builds, that could be some time away!

Rowan

buzz1941 · 3 March 2006, 05:26 PM

Perhaps this might help, particularly in smaller scales. I drew up a typical Fokker serial sequence for creating such numbers. It's really only good for Fokker-built machines. It's saved as both a TIF and an EPS file, so name your poison (if you have access to an EPS program, such as Illustrator or Freehand, they print out quite well). You can print with a laserwriter directly onto decal paper or Xerox a printout onto decal paper. Just open the file and move the numbers around to suit the plane you're building. Then resize it to whatever scale you're building.

In other words, you can have any color you want, as long as it is black.

Here's the bitmap TIF file

And here's the Postscript EPS file

The EPS file is likely difficult to access. If you have trouble, I'll email it directly to whoever needs it. It looks exactly like the TIF file.

Pat Daily · 3 March 2006, 07:09 PM

Buzz

I am building a 1/9 scale Pfalz DIIIa and was trying to locate a font similar to the ones for the plane weights, etc. in the photos in the Windsock 21 and 107 (think those numbers are correct) for the Pfalz series.

The Fokker fonts are superb.

Pat