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Showing results for tags 'silvering'.
Found 2 results
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Hi all, I got to the decaling stage on my Academy 1/72 F-15D this afternoon, using Caracal's Lakenheath F-15 set. I have to admit, my heat sunk when I saw that they were printed by Cartograf. Every time I have attempted to use decals printed by Cartograf they've silvered, and this sheet is no exception. The decals themselves seem to be really thick and just won't submit to any decal solvent in my arsenal*. I've also tried the diluted Klear trick, and that didn't work either. They just won't bed down onto the model and the silvering is as bad as I've ever seen. I've been using other decals over the past few days, including those from the Airfix 1/72 Lightning F.6, Modeldecal and Xtradecal and these have been fine, so I'm pretty sure it's not me. Has anyone else had issues with Cartograf printed decals and managed to overcome them? As it is, I'm contemplating having to try to pull off the decals that are on there and abandon the twelve quid decal sheet and look elsewhere. To say I'm displeased is putting it mildly. The F-15 fought me all the way through assembly and having beaten it into submission and getting a pretty decent paintjob on it, to have it ruined by decals that won't play ball is kinda gutting. Right now, any advice would be gratefully received! Cheers, Mark. * Microsol, Mr Mark Softer, Solvaset and Humbrol Decalfix.
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Hi everyone, I've suffered a strange problem with decal silvering which has spoiled an otherwise enjoyable build, the Eduard Weekend Mig 21R. I'm pretty experienced modeller and have never had a problem like this. I may have had a duff set of decals... After the build I went through my usual process, buffing the paint, airbrushing thin coats of Klear until I had a high gloss, and finally polishing the decal areas. The decals were soaked for 20 second or so, removed and rested on kitchen roll until the decal released. I used Microset and sol and carefully pressed the decals into place and 'rolled' any air bubbles out with a cotton bud. At first they looked superb and snugged down into the panel lines perfectly. The next morning, after drying, ALL the decals had silvered, in fact one of the aircraft insignia numbers fell off. The decals appeared to have no adhesive at all. Being a Weekend edition I only had the one set of suitable decals. I decided to try my failsafe method to replace them using Klear as an adhesive. All the decals lifted of with a wet paintbrush without damage. The area was swabbed with clean water and they were replaced on a patch of Klear, pressed into place and left over night. AGAIN at first they looked fine, the morning after they had silvered just as badly as the first time. I've had kits with terrible decals in the past but never anything like this, I was sure the Klear treatment would solve the problem, I'm beginning to wonder if the fault is not just with the printing process (little or no adhesive layer on the paper substrate prior to printing), but with the printing varnish used to create the clear carrier film. I'm baffled, any suggestions chaps? It looks like this build will end up in file B1N.
