Excellent job so far, my friend @firelockg! Hope all will be good with the decals.

Roden decals are definitely idiosyncratic, my friend @firelockg!
You did an excellent decal job, great that you were able to finish the session with only a really minor mishap.

Hey Ian, @firelockg , the decals I’ve used on my last 3 or 4 builds also started performing poorly. Silvering, weakening, tearing etc. and all from different manufacturers. Or rather, I believe the microsol and microset has performed poorly. I think it either got old or maybe contaminated. I’d been happy with it to that point. I try to label two brushes and only use them for the solution they are assigned to. Either way something sucked.

Last time I ordered provisions I bought in some Mr Mark Softer and Setter. @lgardner had been using them successfully. I put some decals on the Zeps and they went down very well. One of the companies I’d had issues with had previously been Takom. I don’t gloss coat before decalling, and have never had issues until recently (other than the occasional self-destruct moments due to my errors).

Will Pattison has done some deep tests of decals. May be worth a look.

By memory there was a thread on a forum where an employee said (unofficially) that Roden changed its decal manufacturer around 2000, and kits made before then contain less reliable decals.

I often feel there are too many variables in play when putting the stickers on. Interested to get others views.

That said the kit looks magnificent!

Paul, that's an interesting point, the chemicals we use on the decals must change as it ages / is used , maybe I need to change them, worth a try, shall try the Mr mark softener and setter as you suggest.

John , it is not hard to make the eyelets , but easy to lose them. Decals went done reasonably well.

not much done today, centre wings installed on struts. and guns fitted.

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

Solid progress and excellent looks, my friend @firelockg!

Have cut a heap of sleeves , and thought that as a few folk have said that rigging scares them a bit I thought that I might show how I do it. I am no expert but If it helps someone well and good.

I have show earlier how I make the eyelets, now for the sleeves. I am using .7mm OD x.5mm ID silver steel tube and I cut it with a scalpel to the length required 2mm - 4mm depending on the model.

The tools for cutting are a piece of scrap leather on which the tube is placed and rolled back and forth with the scalpel. Tweezers with a groove filed in the end to hold the tube and sewing needle in a pin vice so that I can pick up the tubes and place them in the tweezers , and ream them. The needles are hardened sewing needles that I grind a flat on one side of the point on an oilstone. The photos should clarify it better.

The rigging cable is threaded thru the sleeve then thru the eyelet and back thru the sleeve, pulled tight and CA glued.

Works for turnbuckles and all.

Anyway that's how I do it , others may have better methods but this works for me, happy rigging.

9 attached images. Click to enlarge.