The Little World

I am shameless. Absolutely shameless. I am abashed to admit how shameless I am…

I stole images off the internet. And I did not pay anyone for them. I needed a shark mouth for a Curtiss P-40 plus a set of Nationalist Chinese roundels and I just went to Google and found one. If you’re surprised that I have not tunneled into the ANZ bank and stolen the safe deposit boxes…it is only because I couldn’t find the shovel.

The business of making up and faking up decals is either a wonderful asset or a dangerous drug. I find that now I can do it…I want to do it more. I still desire sets of aftermarket decals for the aircraft I build – from Extradecal or any of the other makers – but the price of $ 17 – $25 for a kit that doesn’t cost that much…is a bit much. I tend to build what I bought or at the most build it to a set of markings I can print myself.

My gear for this is unexceptionable – a standard iMac computer, Photoshop Elements, a font book, and an Epson R3000 printer. Add a packet of Testor’s decal paper and some Micro Decal Film and I seem to be able to succeed. At least I succeed when I print on the white paper – the one occasion I tried to do it on the clear film, it was a disaster.

I have also had disasters with the Testor’s paper if I have not stored it well – it needs room temperature and dry conditions or it degrades and does not take the ink from the printer. I would also welcome it being supplied in  6″ x 4″ sheet rather than the Imperial 5.5″ x 8.5″ size. But that is the whine of a person who gets to use DIN papers for most to the things he does.

Back to the sheet. I find that the sheets are a little uncontrollable when they go through the printer and it is wise to raise the platen gap to wide. It doesn’t affect the focus of the graphics but it prevents side strikes from the printing block.

It also pays to disregard the instructions that come with the sheet insofar as the setting of the printer – set it for gloss, rather than plain paper, and you’ll get better ink coverage. As long as you remember to put the sheet in the right way up…

One saving grace with P-40 shark teeth ( and really, the P-40 is one of the few aircraft that really do deserve shark teeth ) is that there were so many real variations of them painted on by crews. Photos of the period show mouths that curve up, down, and both directions. There are tongueless shark mouths as well as those with red tongues, and the eyes can be forward or backward slanting. Some encompass the entire nose up to the propeller hub and others start back at the radiator housing. So whatever you can paint or print is going to be fine.

As far as other P-40 frighteners go – the Aleutian tigers or the Burma banshees – I avoid them. I am a purist. The AVG Flying Tigers or the RAAF or RCAF are fine by me. I am comfortable with teeth.