I guess you can not realistically expect decals from a near 50 year old kit to still be unscathed by the passage of time as the above photo shows. I had anticipated that they would be likely to be fragile so whilst spraying gloss varnish on the areas of the Airfix Dodge 1 1/2 Ton Personnel Carrier that would have decals applied to them I also gave the sheet of decals a coat to. I just tried these two decals from the sheet to see if my experiment worked but as you can see they will not release from the backing paper without breaking into small pieces.
The theory is that the varnish bonds to the decal preventing it breaking up when soaked to release it from its backing sheet. Well the theory did not meet expectations much as I probably don't meet most people's expectations of a modeller! My next step could be to source some aftermarket decals which might give some similar designs but the cost would probably be £10 to £20. However the WMD HQ stores does have a stock of unused decals from previously built kits and I may be able to cobble something together from these. They wont be right or accurate but they may just be enough for the truck to look interesting!
With no decals to put on for now I did some more painting of the figures. The closeness of digital camera photos does me no favours with these figures showing I have failed to properly deal with the mould lines and the painting is not the best. However from normal viewing distances they look OKish and that suits me! I could spend hours on this kit but fundamentally it was a part built glue bomb when I bought it and the drive train is assembled wrongly so it will never be a museum quality model. Strangely Mrs. Woody thinks I should be in a museum!
Despite the decal disaster tomorrow is another day as they say!
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