Last nights progress: Sorry no photos as that would spoil the final reveal
So last night I took the plunge and started on the
decals. I was dreading this as from reputation and from earlier experience the
decals were not good, thick carrier film, huge borders, some sort of yellowish stain on the carrier and rather thick and inflexible. However, I did the best I could first by trimming as close to the decal as possible and liberal use of Micros Set and Sol. The results were a very pleasant surprise!
The Tiger
decals on the upper surface were the ones I was most fearful of and indeed they were the most difficult go bed down properly, but a couple of incisions with a sharp scalpel blade gave it the flexibility to conform to the complex surface plus I trimmed the two forward shapes off which wrap around the instrument pits and added them afterwards. This helped enormously. The
decals softened a little with the Micro Sol, but not as much as others, however it was enough to get them to sit over the raised panel lines.
All in all it wasn't as difficult as I expected and I am rather chuffed!
Finally last night I added the canopy. This was a bit tricky as I discovered while adding the instrument panel that sticks out in front that the resin cockpit it distinctly asymmetrical by several mm, however you don't see it normally unless you REALLY look hard
Thank goodness! The canopy isn't a very good fit to the front of the body even though during construction I've test fitted and sanded portions to improve the fit. To make sure there were as few gaps as possible, I used Mr Dissolved putty as the fixing medium - using a cocktail stick I laid down a narrow strip of putty all around the edge where canopy would sit so that when the canopy was placed and pushed, the dissolved putty could squidge into the gaps and make a good seal. That left a large gap at the top of the canopy which again I dripped small amounts of dissolved putty into the gap to close it down then this morning added s couple of drops of Mr Surfacer around the canopy edge to smooth the join and then later when its all dried I'll do some very careful sanding to blend it all in.
Now that the
decals are dried I'll be adding the final Klear coat today then adding some more weathering over the
decals then tomorrow will be the Matt coat. Wow I can't beleive this is so close to finishing