Front number plate

[john.p.clegg]

Rich

Stupid me
Many thanks

John

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Your five's higher than your nine. Start again.

Seriously, thanks for sending the contact details. I am also really happy with mine. Ten mins to fix. Bob's yer uncle. And my V lines up with my 3!

Are the "wing nuts" there to facilitate a quick identity change?
Cheers
John

[richgilb]

You can line them up better by looking face on whilst twisting....they have a tendency to start moving around as you tighten them up. I am a genius, right?

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

You can line them up better by looking face on whilst twisting....they have a tendency to start moving around as you tighten them up. I am a genius, right?

Never to be doubted Rich
I suspect you also put a twist into those Wings so that the incoming air tightens rather than loosens them

[richgilb]

Superglue.

[david.g.chapman]

I would like to add my voice in praise of TPLservices. They have just delivered my +2 front "number plate" letters with M5 studs attached for ?1.70 ea.

How do they do it for the price?

I asked for minimum height charactors (79mm) in "1970 number plate font", with a width not greater than 55mm. They supplied the charactors in Arial font, which looks fine. At that font size there is plenty of room for seven charactors across the grill with a gap between the two groups.

Tried to attach picture but failed miserably...

Dave Chapman.

[david.g.chapman]

Try again...

The picture was taken with a flash. Normally the background is black.

Dave Chapman.

[john.p.clegg]

Dave

Nice,are you going to leave them stainless or give them a coat of white paint?

John

[Shiny_kit]

Very nice.

I should have done a deal with them for commission !

[david.g.chapman]

I am going to leave them as they are, as the rear plate (and the old front plate) was silver charactors on black. That's how the new front charactors look in natural light, and white or silver on black is legally OK.

Since that picture I have repositioned the C and D away from the T to give 10-11 mm clearance - important if PC plod gets interested.

Please refer to the attached boring document for more details. The Arial font is pretty close to the Group 2 charactors of 79 x 57mm for pre 1973 plates - the C and D are 2mm wider and the numbers 2 mm narrower - close enough in my opinion.

Dave Chapman.

[msd1107]

The DVLA font is not close to Arial (Monotype Helvetica look alike).

I don't think it difficult to get the appropriate font and make the characters. Anyone in the typesetting business would be able to assist. Why didn't DVLA specify the font in their document V796 instead of sending the person hunting for Reg 2001??

Of course, how many MOT inspectors are font experts?

David
1968 36/7988

[david.g.chapman]

Some more info from the regulation for UK plates...

"Mandatory Character Font
From 1st September 2001 all new number plates must display the new mandatory (compulsory) font. This, combined with the new style format registration mark is designed to make number plates clearer and easier to remember.
Number plates fitted before 1st September 2001 need not be changed provided the character font used is substantially the same as the new font.

Number plates must be replaced if they have been customised with:-
Stylised letters and/or figures such as italics
Number plate fixing bolts that alter the appearance of the letters and/or numbers"

The mandatory font is "Charles Wright". Note that a font "substantially" the same is OK for earlier plates.

By this I suppose that italics and serifs are a no no, but a clear font like Arial can be argued as OK. I think the original white charactors for our cars were a different font to "Charles Wright" anyway - hence the weasel words in the law.

Hope this helps.

Dave Chapman.

[msd1107]

Dave,

You are correct, of course. Weazel words are a great comfort. And as long as you have the original plate, there is no worry. V796 only deals with plates generated after 2001/09.

Helvetica is a registered trademark of the original Mergenthaler-Linotype corporation. There is associated data that is used to generate what we recognize as the Helvetica typeface. Likewise, Arial is a registered trademark of Monotype. Its associated data generates what we recognize as Arial. Arial is as close to Helvetica as Monotype could make it, so we can safely say Arial and Helvetica are "substantially" the same. Compugraphic, Bitstream, Hewlett Packard, and others had typefaces "substantially' the same as Helvetica to get around paying licensing fees to Linotype.

When the LaserJet was released, I licensed typeface names and their data from Linotype, Monotype, and others and generated optimized font data for the LaserJet. Some of this data was used by Microsoft, although I don't know where now.

The point is, now that we know that the font for vehicle registration marks generated after 2001 is "Charles Wright", ordering numbers should specify the numbers be the "Charles Wright" font, not Arial. The vendor who generates the number plate characters should acquire the appropriate printout data with which to generate the numbers and letters. That way, everybody is squeeky clean legal and happy.

And I am pretty sure the company that generates these numbers/letters is not even aware of "Charles Wright" I had never heard of the typeface before.

David
1968 36/7988

[paddy]

And I am pretty sure the company that generates these numbers/letters is not even aware of "Charles Wright" I had never heard of the typeface before.

This company appears to be the rights holder, and they will sell you the postscript or ttf version for ?39:

http://www.charles-wright.com/more.html

Of course, ripped-off versions also seem to be available for download for free.

Paddy