[WIP] Lionel J-38 Straight Key

[Khai]

" I was gifted with two of them. One is a very rare version in it's military issue box. "

please if you ever get the time, can you take reference photos and post them for us? I'd love to have reference like that in the files...

[tuna1957]

superb

[Dave R]

Thank you! I was playing a bit this morning.

[CJRyan]

That's a beautiful model! Adding the knurling, really did the trick!

I have that same locomotive but probably a slightly later early 1950's version, as it had pellets to drop down the smokestack and the transformer provided the forward/backward motion. I see that the one you have has a three position switch for that, so your train goes sidewards?

[Dave R]

Thanks. Threads are next, I guess.

The switch on the loco is really a 2-position thing. As I remember, it was always a little tricky to get it working correctly.

[baz]

Show us the logo Dave, I have a huge bunch of fonts.

[Dave R]

Thanks baz. The logo is just the Lionel L.

The font I need is the one used for labels on the base. You can see it in these photos.

I think it was a standard font specified by the US Army Signal Corps or maybe the US Government during WWII.

[CJRyan]

[quote="Dave R"]
The font I need is the one used for labels on the base.

Dave isn't it just one of the Tecnic fonts?

[Dave R]

@cjryan said:

Dave isn't it just one of the Tecnic fonts?

Not sure. The fonts I found didn't match it.

I just did another search. Found one called Technic that is close but the 3 is wrong. Might be able to cheat it with a modified 8. Thanks.

[CJRyan]

Sorry Dave, I hastily typed that in, Technic was what I meant. The "E" is a little different also, but close.

[Dave R]

No worries. That's as close as I've been able to come, too. i've been looking for some document that would list standards like this from that time. I'm sure there was something.

[tuna1957]

"Futura" maybe ?

[Dave R]

@tuna1957 said:

"Futura" maybe ?

Maybe. I'll check it out.

I went ahead and used Technic but modified the E and the 3. Might call it close enough for government work.

Now to create the Lionel L logo. I was hoping to find a decent BMP or other image to use but I think I'll be drawing it manually. Not a big deal, though.

[davidheim1]

Dave,
There must be 10,000 sans-serif type faces, and after a while they all begin to look alike. My best guess is the type face on the straight key is called News Gothic. My second-best guess is Futura. You can look up both (along with the other 9,998) on a site called fonts.com. It's also possible that Lionel created its own lettering for the straight key--something done by an underpaid draftsman using his Leroy lettering templates. Regardless, the font you chose looks pretty close to the orginal--definitely close enough for gummint work, as you said.
Best,
dh

[Dave R]

Thanks David! News Gothic could be it. The font/type face appears to have been available in the time period. I had thought about but rejected the Leroy lettering sets based on the 3 but you could be right. At the time, other companies manufactured the key and other devices that use the same lettering. I remember some shortwave receivers and a direction finder receiver that I was given when I was about Ian's age. They had seen action in WWII. They had the same or nearly the same lettering on them. (I wish I still had them but they got passed on being too heavy to move.)

I guess I'll leave the labeling as it is on the key now, though. Your clues led me to find a set of fonts created from the Leroy lettering guides. My next overly detailed model might be the scriber and of course I'd need to model the templates.