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Roman Capital Letters ...

wcalvert

Well Known Member
Anyone have a specific source for Vinyl N numbers? I'm not having much success finding a Roman Capital font either... probably a standard the FAA created in 1928 when that font was all the rage!

I'm situated in the NW corner, online is fine too.

Hit me
 
Anyone have a specific source for Vinyl N numbers? I'm not having much success finding a Roman Capital font either... probably a standard the FAA created in 1928 when that font was all the rage!

I'm situated in the NW corner, online is fine too.

Hit me

I designed mine in SolidWorks and the wife cut them out of a cricut. However, if I could do it again I would order these. I didn't know at the time this company had them...
 
Cricut for making your own N Number

Actually just finished my N number. I purchased the Cricut Air 2 and tried several vinyls before settling on oracal brand (sourced from Michaels). The Cricut comes with software to make just about anything for their cutting machine. You can even install new fonts which is what I did. I used Amarillo USAF font I found on-line for my A-10 themed RV-8a. As a side note, I tried using 3M car wrap vinyl but had trouble getting the transfer paper to stick to it. I used it on the tail flash but would probably stick with Oracal going forward. There are 2 types of Oracal vinyl. Get the “permanent” and not the “replaceable”. Good luck.
 

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Anyone have a specific source for Vinyl N numbers? I'm not having much success finding a Roman Capital font either... probably a standard the FAA created in 1928 when that font was all the rage!
Keep in mind that "Roman Letters" doesn't mean "Times Roman" font. Roman Letters are A, B, C, D, etc. as opposed to letters in Mandarin, Cantonese, Farsi, Cyrillic, etc.

Any unadorned capital font that uses characters from A-Z and 0-9 should be acceptable.
 
Thanks all for the input... the last comment by Rob was the clarification I was looking for.

Cheers
 
Thanks all for the input... the last comment by Rob was the clarification I was looking for.

Cheers

I would still be careful, I could not find a single font in Word that met the FARs and my DAR called me on my first set. If your DAR follows the regulation I would look a lot closer at what they say. There are requirements for height, spacing, line thickness, etc. My DAR even has seen some from Spruce that did not meet the regs.
 
I would still be careful, I could not find a single font in Word that met the FARs and my DAR called me on my first set. If your DAR follows the regulation I would look a lot closer at what they say. There are requirements for height, spacing, line thickness, etc. My DAR even has seen some from Spruce that did not meet the regs.

Did he not have something better to pick on? Painting your fuel caps red, maybe?

Geez, seriously? Unless the numbers and letters are egregiously out of spec, who the F cares?
 
Did he not have something better to pick on? Painting your fuel caps red, maybe?

Geez, seriously? Unless the numbers and letters are egregiously out of spec, who the F cares?

Ya I don't agree with it either as I didn't have a wild font or anything either. Rules will be rules I guess. It wasn't much of a bother so I just made the quick change. Luckily he told me ahead of the visit when he requested pictures. Overall he was a cool guy and I would use him again.
 
Ya I don't agree with it either as I didn't have a wild font or anything either. Rules will be rules I guess. It wasn't much of a bother so I just made the quick change. Luckily he told me ahead of the visit when he requested pictures. Overall he was a cool guy and I would use him again.

Did he actually get out his ruler and measure the height, width, spacing and stroke lengths of the N-number? Or did he just guess that it wouldn't meet the requirements?

In any case, that kind of silliness and pedantry is why the word "bureaucrat" is a derogatory term.
 
Look for the font named "Amarillo". It will work, since it looks like USAF standard lettering.
 
While it might be OK to consider an Inspector to be "picky", One should NEVER chastise him/her for "going by the book"! It's his/her job!
 
While it might be OK to consider an Inspector to be "picky", One should NEVER chastise him/her for "going by the book"! It's his/her job!

IMHO the issue is that the FARs are full of subjective terms, leading to wildly different interpretations. How is it possible that the AOPA contest -10 met the ‘contrasting background’ FAR 45.21 test for its N number paint job? OTOH the FARs seldom list tolerances, so a completely over-zealous inspector could reject an N number for being 2.00001” wide, and be “...going by the book”.
 
Did he actually get out his ruler and measure the height, width, spacing and stroke lengths of the N-number? Or did he just guess that it wouldn't meet the requirements?

In any case, that kind of silliness and pedantry is why the word "bureaucrat" is a derogatory term.

Here is pic of the font that didn't pass muster. The characters are not the same thickness and the number 1 was a violation in a couple of ways. You will see though that this font isn't crazy and honestly is more easily readable than the AOPA one but it didn't meet the requirements. I was just glad he told me this ahead of time and not on the visit. I wasn't mad at all, and certainly not at him; the rules here are just a little redonkulous.
 

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close enough good enough

It's a slippery slope once you decide some rule is stupid and you'll ignore it because "everyone is doing it".
 
It's a slippery slope once you decide some rule is stupid and you'll ignore it because "everyone is doing it".

Some rules really *are* "stupid", though. There are plenty of laws on the books that are never enforced nowadays because they're "stupid".
 
Solution

Decided to get my graphics from Aerographics. http://www.aerographics.com/

They can do pretty much anything it seems, and also have a huge selection of pre-built decals and stickers. Stripe kits too.

Turnaround was one day, James was easy to work with and produced exactly what I wanted.

N Numbers, Fuel cap labels, NO STEP, and a couple of USA flags.

Two distractors:

NO online ordering. Not a huge deal really since James knows the catalog by heart. Tell him what you want, he'll do it.

and, even tho I told him no rush, the items were mailed Priority Mail + handling fee = $12.80 ... cheap pilot talking here

I'd do business with them again

Git'er done
 
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