**** DONE : 1/48 Hellcat Mk I JV-131 No 800 Squadron HMS Emperor

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.

 

[Maglar]

Great stripes -

 

[Airframes]

Top job mate, looks great. Little tip for the future; when doing stripes etc, and applying the second colour, seal the edges of the tape with a quick run of the first colour. It stops the second colour bleeding through.

 

[rochie]

looks great despite your troubles Andy

 

[Lucky13]

Awesome work Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Terry, thanks for the tip. Hadn't thought of that.

 

[bemay]

words fail me

 

[Wurger]

 

[B-17engineer]

It looks superb!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Coat of future is on and curing. My concern now is that decals placed over the stripes might be too transparent and that the stripes will show through. I may consider masking the area undeer the decals and painting these white over the black stripe.

Anyone tried applying a decal, removing it right away and placing it back on the backing paper to apply later?

 

[kgambit]

Anyone tried applying a decal, removing it right away and placing it back on the backing paper to apply later?

Yep and it's not a pretty sight.

 

[Airframes]

Yep, done it - with roughly a 50% success rate! I had to touch in the Dull Red of the roundels on the Mustang fuselage, as the black stripe showed through one half of the central circle; wasn't a problem, but could be a tad tricky on code letters.
One possible solution is to trace the outlines of the decals onto the stripes, and then paint the required areas i, for example, white, then place the decals. Alternatively, you can overpaint the decals in the same colour(s) before applying. Just give them a quick coat of Future, or similar clear coat, before using. This will lessen the chances of the paint cracking when the decal is slid off the backing paper. It works well, you just need to be a little careful during handling.

 

[magnu]

Looking very nice

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Terry, I was most likely going for the first method you describe - extending the white over the black in a mask that is exactly the same size as the decal. Not keen on the idea of over painting the decal.

 

[Crimea_River]

Well I'm happy to say that the Eduard decals performed magnificently. I looked at them closely on the sheet and they appeared to have a very solid colouring so I decided to risk putting one of the roundels on the fuselage bands to see if the black and white demarcation showed through. The decals turned out to be very opaque and I was happy with the results. The first pic is a close-up of the port insignia applied. You have to look really close to see the very faint demarcation showing through. Fantastic decals.

The remaining two pics show the overall results. Close review of period photos does not reveal much, if any, stencilling so I decided to leave them off. A seal coat of Future is now on the model after which a dullcoat will be applied.

Thanks for checking in.

 

[Airframes]

Looks the dog's whatsits Andy, great job mate!

 

[vikingBerserker]

I agree, nicely done!

 

[rochie]

brilliant Andy, got me wanting to start mine now !

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Looks great Andy, you have every right to be pleased.

 

[Wayne Little]

Sweet Andy! Decals look great