Renumbering stock?

I have just recently bought the Right Track 3 DVD where Tony Wright goes into this issue. He uses a fiberglass brush - and quite a wide one at that. He brushes off the old number and uses either whole number decals or individual number decals with a wetting agent.

Honestly I think that his work is quite messy. It looks a bit bad, even when weathered.

I have heard recently that a bit of Meths on a cotton bud will remove the decals too without scraping off the underlying paint.

If you use a fiberglass brush, at least use a fine one.

The decals you can get from Fox transfers and Nameplates or HMRS Transfers or Modelmasters Model Railway Decals (email: [email protected])

I've got as far as taking off the numbers on a couple of duplicate coaches i have using a fibre brush and it does leave a shiny patch. Perhaps some of the decal manufacturers could consider making a patch with a number on in various colours. I don't know the intricacies of decal manufacture but would've thought it possible. However the differing colours may used by different makers might be a problem. I have used the old blanking patches and none were an exact match for anything.

This may be a much repeated question but why can't hornby or bachmann or whoever make some coaches available with minimal numbering on and include a set of transfers to complete it with different regional variations. That way there would be no more complaining that there are a lack of western coaches in a certain livery or midland etc. Hornby did it in the past on the old mk3's and quite a few loco's as well. The coaches as i remember had 00 on the side and presumably the rest of the number fitted around it (anyone got one with the transfers?).

Just thought of nother way which works with some. Masking tape, It worked on a couple of older lima loco's i have, but that said they were starting to come away anyway , just quicker and neater.