**** DONE: 1/48 RF-84F Thunderflash - Jet/Recon/Transport GB

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Good work Glenn, and yes, the variation in panel tones is showing up. It will look even better to the naked eye, as any metal surface is difficult to capture properly with the camera, and a 'Pola' filter doesn't work on metal either!
 
The decals went so well on the P-59 tonight I thought I would start them in the thunderflash too. Did not go so well. I used Bare Metal Foil decals before when I did a F-94 in a previous GB and they were just fine, but these are a nightmare. When they go in the water the glue turns milky color and clumpy and because the carrier film is quite a bit wider than the stars and bars it looked awful. Didn't take a picture of it though. The one on the wing was first and I trimmed off the carrier film with a # 11 blade. I cut the fuselage ones before the water so the glue wasn't as much of an issue but the decals were very stiff and didn't want to bent well. The worst was the USAF. Had to keep the carrier film so I cut it into 3 pieces to fit between the wing fences and soaked it in the water until it came off the backing paper than washed the glue off and put it on with Future. 2 out of 3 looked sort of ok, but the AF looked like cr@p so out came the #11 blade again and I cut out all the carrier film. I'll do the same for the bottom of the wings, but I don't know about the MICHIGAN AIR NATIONAL GUARD decals or the serials which have to have the individual numbers pieced together, they're just too small to cut out.

 
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A few hours of work later the Decals are finished - well all except the serial which I will have to make. The remaining USAF, and more impotently the MICHIGAN AIR GUARD decals turned out very nice in the end. I soaked them off the paper and vigorously scribed off all the glue with my finger then rinsed them in clean water before applying them on a Future wetted surface. Good thing they were tough decals. That made a little mess which was cleaned up with a Windex soaked cotton swab, then sealed with fresh Future. Glad there were only 3 more decals that needed this proses. The rest of the decals were from the kit and went on beautifully, just time consuming because of the number of stencils. Still need to do some touch up painting here and there and it's on to the undercarriage.

 
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It's a beaut Glenn! Funnily enough, I had exactly the same problem with the 30 year old decals on my Monogram F-84F. I had to cut around each individual letter of 'USAF', and trim right on the edge of every other kit decal, then remove the milky glue from the reverse, and fix with 'Future'.
 
That's the main thing. Variations in temperature and humidity, during storage, can easily affect the adhesive, and the more prolonged the variations, the worse it can get.
 
I've been working on the landing gear the last couple of days. I bought this set from Scale Aircraft Conversions because the kit nose wheel strut was broken where it connected to the wheel. To tell you the truth I wasn't too impressed when I opened them up with all the flash, but when I cleaned them up and did the detail painting they turned out to be little works of art. I just wish they weren't so d@mn expensive or I'd be using them for many more of my builds. As it is I paid more for the landing gear set than the kit. The circled pieces in the last pic are the kit parts for comparison, and the wheels are from the kit as I could find no after market resin ones.

 
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