Decal problems; sometimes too much knowledge is dangerous

jumpin-jacque

I ran into a bad decal application while working on a long shelved Hasegawa P-51D 1/48th scale Mustang the other day, and if I didn’t know a little too much, I might have acted sooner.

solvasetIt’s a great model and for the first time, I used Testor’s Metalizer paint (more about that later). Although I didn’t achieve the perfect shine, I still liked the results very much and was looking forward to applying the decals. Unfortunately, they were a little yellowed, but putting them in a south-facing window solved that in a few days.

I added the big invasion stripes on the wing first and was impressed by how resilient the decal was. Often old decals disintegrate, but this held up pretty well, probably because it was so thick. Of course, that meant it didn’t snug down nicely, so I tried MicroSol with little effect. Then I went for the SolvaSet. After a minute, the wrinkles appeared that would normally alarm a first-time user of SolvaSet. I was not worried and put it aside and looked back on it in an hour. The wrinkles were still there.

So I left it alone and figured the wrinkles would disappear overnight. Well they didn’t. And the thing is, if I’d been a first-timer user, I would have scraped off the decal while it was still dry, but I waited until the decal was completely set.

Another application of SolvaSet didn’t help either, but a third application softened it enough that I could scrape it off with a cotton swab dipped in more SolvaSet. Unfortunately, some of the Metalizer came off as well, but I think I can fix that. I guess I should have followed the advice to test the SolvaSet on one of the spare decals (there are decals for three versions). I think I will remember that advice next time.

My only real option for solving this problem is the airbrush on the stripes, but I’ll have to decide whether to airbrush on all the stripes because it may be difficult to match the off-white stripes of the decal.

Written by

Jennifer Petkus divides her time between writing Jane Austen-themed mysteries, creating websites for the dead, woodworking, aikido and building model starships. She has few credentials, having failed to graduate from the University of Texas with a journalism degree, but did manage to find employment at the Colorado Springs Sun newspaper as a cop reporter, copy editor and night city editor before the paper died in 1986. She has done little since. Her husband is the night editor at The Denver Post. Her best friend is a cop. She watched Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon live. She is the author of, Good Cop, Dead Cop: A Novel about the AfterNet. She’s writing the sequel, The Background Noise of Souls, and another AfterNet related story, Jane Austen’s Book Tour.

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