And it is a curse that will spread out to the wider community…
Thirty years is a long time – despite what Hollywood says. It is the difference between a starlet being a 10 and being a 2… It is a long time for a set of decals to sit in a damp shed; something is going to go bad. In this case it is the unique set of decals for this South Vietnamese aircraft.
The answer to these sorts of situations is to scan the original sheet before trying it – and when you find that it is not going to work, to print your own set of decals with an inkjet machine.
I took the precaution, tried the decals, and found that that they would not release from their backing sheet. A common failing of material this old. Plan B was to print on both white and clear backing paper to give enough decals for one version of the plane.
This is a swim in the Suckitan Sea, the settings on the printer for the white paper are different than those for the clear and you need to test both out. Eventually you get a set of images that do not bleed past the image margins. Then you coat the sheets with clear lacquer and hope for the best.
I will break my pattern and search out a set of 1/72 Skyraider decals for the next two donated kits – I cannot trust what remains in the older Hasegawa boxes. Hopefully there will be a USAF and USN set in one packet.
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