The Little World

I spent one morning recently decalling airplanes – a simple but delightful exercise in cut and paste. The surfaces of the planes were a clear smooth gloss and the first two decal sets – from Hobby Boss – were all that you could want.

They were not pretentious markings – just stars, numbers, and a few letters on a clear backing. But they released quickly, floated into position without folding, and blotted down well. No silvering.

The following sheet was a home-made set of Soviet stars on Testor’s white paper. A little thicker, and not as intense as the Hobby Boss, but eventually they floated down and set well. You appreciate stars on roundels as they are pretty easy to wrangle into place.

But then I took out the prize stash decals that I’d bought in Sydney – the ones with the IAF star and striped tail. It’s not a big plane, but space will have to be found on it for 6 Magen David insignia plus two stencil numbers plus the red/white striped rudder. The composition of the decals reminds me of an old-fashioned oiled tablecloth. Or a sheet of Harvey Creusot steel armour plate – but not so soft and pliable.

I’ve done my best and soaked the wretched things in Micro Sol several times. I’ll look critically at the MD insignia tomorrow to see if they have gripped tightly enough but I reckon the red/white tail is going to have to come off and be replaced by a spray-paint job. It just looks like a dead decal.

This was my experience with the black/white striped rudders that were tried on the Consolidated Liberator, and they, too were stripped off and thrown away. I suspect that there are few tail decals that look good enough to stand any scrutiny, and if I am going to do them in the future I think I’ll just have to go for the paint in the first place.

Maybe that’s why the sheet was in the stash.

Addendum: I stripped that thing off the tail next morning and stamped on it. Repainting the stripes was so much easier. All 101 Sqn planes that need this sort of stripe in the future will be done in paint.