Tag: Decals
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The Home Printer
A guide for the scale modeller. I have long come to grips with the business of home printing. It started in the dear old darkroom days of film photography and locked the family out of the bathroom/darkroom many a night. Now we are digital, they can get in at any time, and I just sit…
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Lockheed Ventura – Part Three – Shiny Is As Shiny Does
And you can’t tell a paint by the tin. The ugly bug in the heading image had just received the third colour of a standard RAF day bomber scheme and was waiting to be de-husked. The masking was, if anything, worse looking than usual, but for a good reason. The worms were standard but the…
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Do You Advance?
Is each build making you a better modeller? It can, if you let it. If you learn one new technique, or have one new disaster, or accomplish one new task each time you complete a kit, you are on the road to success. Hopefully, you will not reach it – else what’s a Heaven for?…
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Polikarpov I-3 – Part Four – Lightning
Like my luck, it never seems to strike twice in the same place… Fortunately, this AGA kit has proved to be good luck and has come out far better than might have been expected upon opening the sad old box. The assembly of the wings was easier than many biplanes have been – I made…
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Too Many Decal Systems
Too many to make your hobby shop choice an easy matter. And that’s the way it is with scale model chemicals – whether that is paint, cement, or polish – in the 21st century. We might have passed cheerful childhoods with tube cement, tinned paint, and a bottle of turpentine, but we ain’t going to…
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Rounding On The Roundel
How many times have you put the decal on wrong? More that you’d think… The use of a distinctive insignia or roundel for any particular air force has been mandated for over a century. It was difficult for pilots to identify friends or foes if they have to land and ask a series of questions…
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Decal Or Paint?
Not a difficult choice when the design is complicated. Also not a tough decision when the decal sheet has something exactly as needed. There are any number of decal setting solutions today that will let you drape a design over a wet porcupine, so just take your time. When it comes to bigger scales and…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Four – Get Thee Behind Me, Stencils…
You cannot escape decals on model aircraft – they are needed to complete everything. But they can completely ruin the job. Or your day, if you let them. I’m thinking of the friable, misprinted, graphic horrors that flow out of eastern Europe. You can tame them somewhat, but you are never really satisfied with the…
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Airbus 320-200 – Part Three – Safely Flying
I was going to title the wrap-up post ” Safely Landed “, but then I realised that the gear was up… At the outset I must admit this kit surprised me. I expected little, but got a lot. There have been moments, but these were predictable, and the difficulties were surmounted. Difficulties? Not the fit…
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Vought Crusader F-8 – Part Two – Cockpit Decals
Bless the designer who thought of making decals for the cockpits of 1/72 scale aircraft. I admire the resin parts that people buy for aftermarley – they can be superbly detailed. A worker in 1/48 and larger would certainly get good visual value from a resin seat or control stick. And the PE brass instrument…
The Little World 