The Little World

Waterslide decals were the wonder of my childhood. I only encountered them in the model kits I built, and since these were kits in the 1950’s, they weren’t all that good.

They were yellowed, cracked, thick, lumpy, and inaccurate. They had margins that looked like stranded jellyfish. They took about a half hour to soak off the paper backing and every single one of them had silvering somewhere eventually. But they two distinct advantages; they were far better than my painting skills, and they did not fold in the middle.

The next time I encountered them – the 1980’s – they seemed to be better. Less flash, smaller contours, and more detail. And markedly less silvering , even though I was not using decal softeners at that time.

This time round, they are magnificent – with an admixture of horrible. And I am a little nostalgic for the 1957 Aurora types for one reason.

This current batch of model has included a number or Airfix 1:72 kits. The decal sheets all seem to be dual-purpose – you get to choose from a couple of variants in each kit. This you’ll end up with a hodgepodge of excess markings…which is not a bad thing at all. You never can tell when you’ll need a special insignia in the future. The Airfix decals are well-printed and probably as accurate as any on the market. But they take 25 to 35 seconds each to soften up enough to slide off the paper backing.

I’ll give them this – they do not tear or fold back upon themselves readily. They seem to soften well under Microset or Microsol and so I will regard them as a the standard measure for the industry at present.

The Academy decals were similar. A little faster to release – 15 seconds – but just as easy to work with.

Which brings me to the AZ models decal sheets I’ve been working with for the last two builds. I’ll start with praise by saying they look accurate. They seem to be sized to fit on the models, though there are few enough clues as to where they should go on the instruction sheets. And they release in ten seconds. But…

But they are fragile and friable. They fold back upon themselves. They grip when you want them to slide and slide when you want them to grip. There are far more of them on a sheet than could reasonably be expected to feature on a model as small as 1:72. I have had to look critically at how much information I need to present on the model for my photographs and stop there before I get down to stenciling the crew’s lunch boxes.

It will now be interesting to see if they are safe under acrylic gloss or matte spray.