Hasegawa Decals

[Sharknose]

New then.

 

I'm building Hasegawa's 1/48 F22 and there are a few small decals for the pilot's arm chair. Boy they are a pain, a lot of excess clear margin round each making it difficult to conform and both quite warm water or Klear are not making them all that pliable.

 

I dug out some Humbrol decal set fluid for the last one I did today but they seem to be hard work and very delicate. 

 

I messed up the one for the very top of the seat.

 

Are they all like this fro Hasegawa or, more likely, it's me.

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Sharknose said:

 

Are they all like this fro Hasegawa or, more likely, it's me.

 

 

  

On 29/08/2016 at 23:26, Gary C said:

The best way to get all Japanese decals ( Fujimi, Hasegawa, Tamiya etc)to work as they're supposed to is use hot water and the correct setting solutions. You'll need a bottle each of Gunze Mr Setter and Mr Softer. Micro sol and others won't work as they're formulated differently. Do not use Gunze on Microscale or Cartograf decals as it will chew right through them.

Dip the decal in hot water, it doesn't need to be boiling but it does need to be fairly hot. The temperature of a drinkable tea will do. The glue is heat activated and is what makes up most of the thickness. If you dip it in cold water you'll spend the rest of the day waiting and cursing.

Lay down some Mr Setter, this is in the blue bottle. It acts as an additional glue. Slide the decal onto it and into postion and leave it alone. The decal should wrinkle a little.

Give it 10 mins or so and go over the decal with a brush with a little Mr Softer (green bottle) on it. Use sparingly as it is extremely hot. Too much and it will damage the paint, especially the weaker acrylics. The decal will now wrinkle a lot. Do not touch it as it is almost liquified at this point.

Once it is dry it will have smoothed out and will lay down beautifully over just about any raised or recessed detail you care to think of. Used properly it is probably the best conforming decal process in the industry. Used incorrectly and you'll be just another guy complaining about crap Japanese decals.

 

 

from

 

 

 

Hase decals used to be 'famous' for their Ivory 'whites'  as well.

[Sharknose]

Cheers, so it's a right hassle then. Sigh......

[Steve Noble]

Depends on the age of the decals? On some later Hasegawa kits the decals were printed by Cartograf and were excellent quality. You must have one of the older kits where Hasegawa printed their own decals. They can be a bit thick, but still useable. Use fairly hot water, a decent soak before use and a strong decal setting solution. The Humbrol decal setting solution is pretty weak stuff. I use Daco products decal setting solution (strong version) and it works really well on thicker decals. Also the Gunze stuff Mr Mark Softer is decent and pretty strong, better than Humbrol anyway. If the carrier film is troublesome trim it off as close as you can to the decal, it may help..

[Sharknose]

Cheers Steve, I think I bought the kit last year but could still be fairly old i suppose. 

Will persevere.

[セイウチ]

Japanese here... Hasegawa Decals aren't that good as Xtradecal or something from EU and yes hot water activated lol

YET they're acceptable (as for code letters and some rare insignias...) but personally i would use only letters...

then I'd use the rest like Roundels and/or Crosses on German airplanes from different sheets. the reason is Ivory Whites as mentioned above plus they're tend to lose their colours if they're exposed to the sun (even Old Revell decals don't do that!)

so i remember using Hasegawa decals as a base for the masks I've made by myself then just painted code letters with an airbrush.

Cheers!

 

 

Edited June 5 by セイウチ

[Steve McArthur]

After dealing with the decals on the Hasegawa F-2A I bought a mug heater and a small metal pet food bowl to keep my decal water hot. I was finding they just did not want to release from the backing paper unless the water was hot. I also bought all the varieties of Tamiya's Mark Fit (normal, Strong & Super Strong) and a bottle of their decal adhesive.