The Little World

My efforts to obtain 1:72 decals from Canada for the C-119 Fairchild Flying Boxcar came to nought – the sets that were made are long out of production. In the event, this is just as well, because they would have necessitated a major reconstruction of the aircraft’s tail to be authentic.

I was thrown back to the Testors paper and the home-made decals. And in this case I was very much in luck – because between now and the last time I used the inkjet system I had a chance to read articles on decal production and deployment that have made the system much better.

Briefly, though all previous efforts have been moderately successful – when I used fresh Testors paper in the Epson printer – there were flaws. The decals I made teetered between not enough colour on the panels, cracks in the ink patches, and gross overload of the paper. As well, every time I coated them with a varnish to seal the ink, there was some degree of ink run and smearing of  lighter colours by the darker ones.

After reading other people’s experiences I have settled for a number of changes:

a. Print on fresh paper, of course – but set the Epson to print as if it was on plain paper rather than photo-quality or archival matt. The amount of ink load is less.

b. Leave the ink to dry for an hour rather than a half hour.

c. Spray the varnish coating rather than brush it. Heretofore I used a Micro product and a soft brush but this time I took and old rattle can of Humbrol Semi Matte acrylic varnish and sprayed three light coats on the decals. No smearing at all, a nice dulled look, and no problemos with the transfer and application.

As you can see, the roundels and fin flash went down a treat with plain water and then Micro Sol.

I’ve taken to using plain water on the model surface rather than Micro Set as the plain liquid seems to allow the decals to float more effectively and gives more time for positioning with the brush. The Micro Set does all that you could ask when it pulls them down over the raised details.

There will be an extensive decalling session next time at the club as I have found photo evidence that shows the wing walks and panels that the kit decals supply were indeed on the RCAF aircraft as well as the USAF types.