I posted a few days ago about my decal disaster which you can read about by clicking here. Given that the decals were nearly 50 years old I knew they would be fragile and probably break up when soaked to release them from their backing paper. Much as Mrs. Woody would hate to admit I was right. I had sprayed the decal sheet with some acrylic varnish. The theory being that the varnish would hold the decal together. It didn't, proving Mrs. W is right that I usually get things wrong! However, having thought about it a bit, I wondered if soaking the decal to release it from its backing paper was also dissolving the water based acrylic varnish? Hmmm! Having only taken a couple of the decals off the main sheet I still had the main sheet. So out came a can of enamel varnish and the sheet given a coat of it.
My revised theory that the water proof enamel would not be affected by soaking the decal to release it from the backing sheet was right! Mrs. W would just roll her eyes at that but I was pleased! It is not all plain sailing. You have to cut the decals out of the sheet close to the actual printed detail other wise you end up with a large film of clear varnish surrounding the printed detail. Not easy when it is white print on on white backing paper! In addition, despite soaking the decals in water as I need them, I am having to use a scalpel blade to slide between the decal and paper to get the decal fully off the backing paper but in general the decals are coming off more or less complete. Once applied a coat of decal softener is applied to help them set in place.
It is taking some time to apply all these decals but it does make the model look better. I will need to apply a coat of varnish once all the decals are in place to seal them ready for further weathering.
Whether I will actually get anything else right is open to debate although I know Mrs. W's view but at the moment I am basking in the supposed glory of getting this right!
No comments:
Post a Comment