The Little World

Balance it up in your mind – whether you trust the decal makers to put a product out that will look like a painted surface, or whether you can make a painted surface look like a decal.

If you can fold a 2-dimansional sheet of plastic paint to conform to a 3D surface with convex and concave surfaces next to each other…go for the decal. If it is not 40 years old and you are prepared to soak it in dragon’s urine for a week to get it to stretch down over the rivets, there is no advice I can offer. Try not to scream by Day 4.

If you distrust the decal, mask and paint, and make up some small decals to supply lettering if needed. Inkjet coated with clear acrylic is a surprisingly good option.

The business of a three-tone fuselage means at least two maskings and multiple rivets will always risk spider runs. Make full use of masking liquids in the impossible corners and be prepared to use and lose a lot of tape and putty.

Note that I do learn my lessons and none of this tape was exposed to high heat in the drying box – thus no transfer of the tape adhesive to gum up the paint layers.

Note that I have also learned to make the decal before mixing the paint – the blue was not quite a pure bottle shade but a few drops of lighter blue corrected it. You are chasing your tail if to try to paint and then match with a computer command through an editing program.