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Thanks Andy - you are, of course, right about the varying bond strengths of the decals v's clear coat. I might have to see what happens when I get to an Eduard kit on the list. Your experiences do not fill me with confidence though...Grant Barr , the clear coat was applied over the sections that I didn't peel the carrier film from but it still didn't work. For my comments on the carrier film removal, see posts 162 and 167 of this thread. The issue with applying a clear coat in hopes that it will give better resistance to decal tears is, in my opinion, a false hope. Yes, it might help A BIT but doing this does nothing to fix the poor bond that is the cause of the tear-off. That poor bond will always be there unless you can find a way to get to that layer and inject some kind of binder any force that pulls that weak bond apart will do so, and take the clear coat with it.
So now for more trials. Thinking that the decal issue was behind me, I sprayed a matte coat tonight and then applied another thin coat tinted with a touch of flat white to get some fading going. I like how the finish turned out.
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But alas....one of the decals that I didn't remove the carrier film from (because they didn't stick to the decal underneath) decided to debond itself at one corner. So, here's me thinking that it was a small piece that I forgot to remove so I got the tweezers out and gave it a small tug. Shouldn't have done that.....
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What now? To minimize the ugliness, I took a scalpel and cut up to the edge of the yellow 2 and peeled the film back to that. You can see that the piece on the lower left corner of the A is still there - that's where I repaired the earlier tear with Future and it's now stuck on.
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This problem will be tackled tomorrow when I'm in a better mood. I now have to carefully feather the paint edge at the left side of the A and then match the faded clear coat. So maybe we can start GB 62 now?