Painting over a silvered decal

[Jasonb13]

Hi there,

My current build has been painted all blue and then I put a coat of Klear on. I put on the decals ( using Micro-Sol ) but I got some silvering on a couple of them.

However, the silvering is only visible under the parts of the decal that are transparent. For example, there's a large decal of lots of white lines, and the area between those white lines is basically just transparent carrier film, and that's where the silvering can be seen.

I've tried using a pin to put some small holes in it and applying more Micro-Sol, but it didn't make too much of a difference.

So now I'm thinking, as it's a transparent decal, why don't I just get a small brush and paint over the transparent parts with the blue paint. Then I can put another coat of Klear on it, and in theory it'll all look seamless.

Before I put paint on it though, I wanted to do a sanity check. Has anyone else done this, is there anything I need to be careful of? Thanks!

J.

[CliffB]

Hi Jason

What you're proposing is a good idea - I do it quite regularly.

Hope it works out for you.

Cliff

[Pat C]

Me too although I mask and spray over the silvered bits. You could try a more aggressive decal solution like Mr Mark Softer as an alternative - poke a hole as you have done and press down with a toothpick afterwards.

Pat

[Jasonb13]

Excellent, thanks for your replies lads! I gave it a go ( impatience is a bad trait in a modeller! ), it wasn't much painting really, just a couple of very small sections. Right now it just looks like how paint always looks when I touch up a model after applying a coat of gloss, the new bit is a slightly different shade. Normally, when I put the next gloss coat on, the two shades match again.

So pretty much all the silvering is now covered, and as long as the next gloss coat evens up the shades, it's mission accomplished!

J.

[Siggy]

Hallo Folks,

I have nearly the same problem. I painted my 109 with XTRAColor paint to have a glossy surface. Then I put the decals on with Micro-Set first and -Sol afterwards. But whatever I do they won't stick to the fuselage. Maybe one of you could help. I even made a small hole with a needle in the decals just in order to get the substances underneath the decals. But no help either.

[Andrew Jones]

Hallo Folks,

I have nearly the same problem. I painted my 109 with XTRAColor paint to have a glossy surface. Then I put the decals on with Micro-Set first and -Sol afterwards. But whatever I do they won't stick to the fuselage. Maybe one of you could help. I even made a small hole with a needle in the decals just in order to get the substances underneath the decals. But no help either.

You could try putting them on over a wet coat of Klear, or if that's not availilble I find a 50/50 mix of PVA adhesive and water will usually do the trick , it dries transparent and will shrink and pull the decal down onto the surface. Works particularly well on AFV's where you don't want to use a gloss coat.

[Siggy]

@Andrew,

Thank you very much. I'm going to try it right now.

Siggy