Decals are underway, with all the main decals safely in place, but yet to be sealed.
The "stars and bars" are from the Eagle Strike "American Jabos Part V" sheet, with the remainder from the Kagero sheet included in their book "P-47 Thunderbolt with the USAAF in the ETO".
There are a couple of areas in the fuselage stars which will need a little touch-up with white paint, as the black of the AEAF stripes is showing through, and this will be done (very carefully !) once the decals have fully set.
I was a little apprehensive about applying the nose art, name, and the "score board", due to their size, and in the case of the name, the colours.
The nose art is over 35mm tall, and wedge-shaped, and needed accurate placement, and I was concerned that it might fold or tear when being applied, but it went on easily enough.
The name is in two colours, where the "K" and the "T" are in white, the remainder in black, with the white needing precise placement on the blue nose band. The "II" was also part of this decal, and would have to fold over the cowling flaps, which would almost certainly result in "kinks" or other problems. This was easily sorted, by cutting the "II" into a separate decal, and applying once the name was in place and settled. The name itself took a little bit of fiddling, but it ended up in the right place at the correct angle.
The decal for the "scoreboard", data block and pilot's name etc is all one piece, and over 40mm long, and again I was a bit concerned about folding and final positioning, but it went on fine. I'm not that keen on such large clear areas of decal on a "metal" surface, as this can possibly slightly discolour with time, and show up on the surface finish, even if sealed with a clear coat, but I guess only time will tell (the 1/32nd scale decals on the same sheet are separate "blocks" for the various parts of this area).
I'll let these settle until tomorrow evening, and then seal them all with a semi-matt clear coat, before moving on to applying a shed load of stencil decals, again from the Eagle Strike sheet.
Thanks again for the interest and kind comments, and I hope to be back with another up-date soon.