The Little World

A modeller’s Halloween horror story…

I had just gotten to the decal stage for a new model – a tiny little Academy 1:72 Sopwith camel. Lovely model, with interplane and cabane struts that just fell into place. And a simple colour scheme for mine – the RAF museum plane at Hendon; khaki and linen.

The decal sheet was simple as well – tail colours, side rondel and flight letter, and wing roundels. I should have gotten a clue when I saw the tail flash was printed in reverse – totally contravening both reality and the box art.

That was a simple paint job – British and French tails nearly always look better painted anyway, and if the French ones are supplied with separate lettering decals to go over the tricolore then you cannot do better.

The rest of them, however seemed to have been printed either by the firm that makes Laminex or by Krupp in Essen…they were that thick and tough. I think you could have made very small frisbies out of them.

They released cleanly and went on fine over Mr. Mark Setter, but after that they refused to settle down with anything short of a wooden mallet. I coaxed them into position and pressed as hard as the plastic and my old fingers could stand, but from here on in it was be a case of increasingly strong solvents. A very scary time.

Eventually I stripped off the worst ones – the top wing, and replaced them with spares box roundels. These were fragile eastern European things but at least when they collapsed , they did it at the right spot.