AboutClifford Bossie Expertise Model aircraft and aviation History and photography, Naval history and ship models, maritime and ships in general, Scratch building of models, Some military history
Experience I have built models for the better part of thirty five years, have taken photographs of U.S. military aircraft and ships for about twenty five years and am currently scratch building a 1/72 nd scale model of the USS Petrof Bay (CVE-80).
Organizations Local IPMS
Publications IPMS journal and local IPMS publication. Photos and drawing in Koku Fan, Deatil and Scale, et al.
Question What is the best way to apply "water slide" decals to model
airplanes without the decals breaking/disintegrating?
Answer Joel,
Apologies, I just got back from vacation, so it took me a while to answer your question. The best thing you can do to avoid water slide decals disintegrating is to coat them with a decal film. Microscale makes one called "Micro Superfilm" or "Micro Liquid Decal Film" depending on who you buy it from. It is available from mail order such as Roll Models, Squadron, etc. You simply brush it onto the decals and let it dry. Once dry the decals should not break apart. I recently started to decal an FG-1D with an old set of Arrow Graphic decals, after one of the national emblems broke apart I quickly coated the remainder of the sheet and had no further problems.
Another trick is one I lerned from a friend at my local IPMS chapter. He (like me) was not always happy with gloss coating a flat finish, applying decals and then spraying flat coat on to get back to a flat finish, which is never as flat as to begin with. His solution: a 50-50 mixture of Future and water. Dip the decals in that (After the Super film has dried), when they are ready to slide off the backing paper he brushes the mixture where the decals will go. When they are at the final placement he "wicks" off the excess with tissue, or sops it up with a q-tip. The rest he just lets dry, afterwards removing any excess with amonia and water. Two benifits to this method: a very flat finish and the Future mixture helps to lubricate the decals decreasing any chances of disintigration.
