I said in my last blog it might take some time for the decaling job and I wasn’t wrong. Although I am very happy with the results so far.
Decaljob
To just get it over with, the worst result:
I might be wrong there. I will have to look into it before I will do my next decaling job. If anyone of my readers can tell me if I am right or wrong in my assessment that would be awesome as always.
Some more small things that could have been better:
Overall I do feel pretty good about this process. As I mentioned in the last blog I figured it was probably some bad childhood memory that made me look up to this job, but really is a mistake to compare yourself to your twenty year younger self isn’t it.. especially being a kid you can be excused for not thinking things through. 32 year old me does a much better job.
Of course it could be the decals just got better, or maybe I just leave them in the water a lot shorter. But I know that one big thing is that small cotton swabs I got at a hobby shop really are a big friend with this job. I was able to salvage many rolled up decals without any problem by just making a cotton swab slightly damp and picking the decal up. I was then able to just roll it off the swab and onto the model.
I know that as a kid I just used my clunky fingers, often resulting in the torn up decals I have had nightmares about.
Some more pictures of my progress so far:
Something I found interesting myself: I had never really thought about what would happen with the drop tanks and sort of figured they would just be lost after use.
Although I initially mentioned I would do the underside first, it seems to not really work like that once you get down to it. Obviously you don’t want to cut in the middle of the paper too much to avoid damaging any decals, so mostly I just work towards a decal I actually want to place. I also try to avoid touching anything I just placed on the models.. unfortunately I already have had some decals on my hand that I had already placed but didn’t let dry.
I will probably be able to wrap this up pretty soon, and then it is on to doing my first experiment with chipping!
IPMS Nederland
I received my membership card and login details for the IPMS site! I think there will be a regional meeting on September 18th and it would be great if I could take the FW-190 with me!
So far I found a nice tip in one of the magazines I got with the membership: using wood glue to temporarily fix things into place. I will definitely have to try that because tack isn’t always a good solution.
I also saw a nice example of a A6M3 on the forum, which is great because I hope to start my A6M5 project in a couple of weeks. It turns out one of the inspiration sources was a book I bought myself a week ago:
Excellent book for beginners and probably a nice reference work for more advanced builders as well. This will be a good starting point for all the things I still want to try!
Anyway, I am excited to have joined IPMS and I hope I can enjoy the benefits.
It might not be a big deal for a lot of people, but the last couple of years I have suffered from social anxiety more than I have realized. I guess it sort of crept up on me over the years. I was just intimidated by going to the things I had to go to like social meetings at work, but also weddings and birthdays of friends. You can imagine that if you suffer from that with the things you have to do you’re not even thinking about doing the things you will actually want to do! Not too long ago it would have been out of the question to even visit a hobby shop, and now I have actually joined a club and look forward to visiting my first meeting!
New desk!
I decided on my new desk and it should come in tomorrow!
Now I just need something to place all my stuff in, so I am not done with spending money. OK, by now I am ready to accept that you never really are in this hobby.
I will probably focus on getting things in the right place tomorrow!
Groetjes,
Dan
Dutch Scale Models 
Decals with large clear areas are always sort of high risk. Perhaps pressing it down with a cotton swab while wet could have reduced the problem. The only thing now is touch up with a very fine spray from an airbrush, and/or some very low tack masking (like a post-it note).
Just at a casual look the tactical number looks fine. Such things are very local in their application, so what’s right can only be determined with very specific photos. Colors, fonts, sizes, positions; there were really no “rules”. Once you’ve dull coated over everything it should stand out less. Especially if you weather or apply a wash over the whole surface. That will sort of “unify” the look.
The drop tanks are funny. Both aluminum and fuel were in short supply, so they would be considered important. 8th Air Force even thought it important enough to use paper drop tanks so they weren’t dropping aluminum AND unused fuel into Nazi Germany.
I actually tried getting the air out with a cotton swab but I must have messed up! No worries, I will apply another layer as you say. I’l first get the remaining decals on and then it’s time to touch up on some small areas.
Yes it does make a lot of sense to not supply your enemy with freebies! Paper fuel tanks, that is amazing!