1/72 Valom Vickers Wellesley

Started by George R Blair Jr · 94 · 1 week ago · 1/72, North Africa, Valom, Vickers, Wellesley
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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 weeks, 2 days ago:

    Seems like you found a workable solujtion for those decals, George @gblair
    Results are very nice.

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 weeks, 2 days ago:

    Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). I think the decals will work fine. I added all the rest of the decals and will let them dry for 24 hours. Photos later.

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    Felix said 2 weeks, 2 days ago:

    What a beautiful paintjob, George @gblair. The Wellesley is one of those ugly 1930ies monoplanes that have character nonetheless!

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 weeks, 1 day ago:

    Thanks, Felix (@fxrob). I had never used "washable" paint before, so I really had no idea how it would come out. Now that I have used it, I am starting to see a lot of possibilities.

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 weeks, 1 day ago:

    After letting the underwing decals dry for 24 hours, I took a good look at them and they seem fine. There was one tiny place where one of the roundels silvered a little, but a little micro-slicing and reapplication of the MarkFit seemed to take care of it. I applied the rest of the decals, except for some small underwing stencils. The fuselage code letters had problems settling over some of the raised detail, so I have done some slice and reapplication of MarkFit and will check it out tomorrow. If all is good, then tomorrow will be clear flat day, followed by some dusty weathering. Cheers

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 2 weeks, 1 day ago:

    Decals look excellent, my friend @gblair!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 weeks, 1 day ago:

    Looks great with the decals on, George @gblair

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 weeks ago:

    Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). Decals didn't work out quite so great. See next post.

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 weeks ago:

    After testing the kit decals on the lower wing, I thought they might work out OK, so I added the rest of the decals and let them dry for 24 hours. When they were dry, they looked pretty good. I sprayed Tamiya Clear Flat to seal the decals. Almost immediately, the clear carrier for the decals became very visible. It didn't look like silvering, but clearly there was a problem with the decals. The first thing I tried was to let the clear flat dry for 12 hours, then I put another layer of Tamiya Clear Flat onto the model to see if it would help. It didn't. My next try will be spraying some dead flat clear onto the model to see if this helps. If that doesn't work, I may resort to weathering see if it will hide the problem. If none of this works, then perhaps some creative photography?

    3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 2 weeks ago:

    Pity the decals behaved that way, my friend @gblair. Let's hope your approach will sort things out. It's not that apparent, though.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 weeks ago:

    A real pity this occured, George @gblair
    From the pictures it seems like it only happens on the roundels, not the codes, is that correct?

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    Carl Smoot said 2 weeks ago:

    Good luck resolving the decals issue George (@gblair). Certainly it is worth a shot to try what you have proposed. The only other thing I can think of (short of removing them and spraying the roundels instead) would be to mask the roundels using wet tissue and then attempting to spray over the edges with the camouflage. That would be risky considering it might be difficult to match the camouflage colors.

    It might be better if you attempts don't resolve this to simply leave them alone and treat it as a learning experience.

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    John Healy said 2 weeks ago:

    This is looking great, George. Wing roundels: Iā€™d consider removing the clear flat over them with a Q-tip and some Windex. Cut the clear film around the roundels and brush some Future onto them. Let dry, respray the flat coat.

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 weeks ago:

    Hi, Spiros (@fiveten), John (@johnb), Carl (@clipper), and John (@j-healy): These decals remind me of what the old Monogram decals used to do back in the dark ages. I haven't had decals do something like this in 15 years or so. I always worry about the decals because they come at the end of a build and have the power to ruin a model. I considered replacing the decals, but the ones I tried under the wings looked good, so I continued with the rest of the decals. One of the lessons here is take the "test" decals under the wing through all of the processes, including a layer of clear. This problem didn't appear until the clear went on. The aggravating thing here is that I considered replacing the decals with spare decals, but I changed my mind after I thought the underwing decals had worked. John, you picked up on one of the good qualities of this problem, namely that the problem disappears when you change the angle of viewing. I'm not adventuresome enough to mess with the camo while trying to fix the decals. One thing I know for sure is that it is impossible to match paint you have already sprayed, especially when I have used washable paint. So, my plan is to finish the model and take the Headline photos using creative photography. I will file this away as a learning experience, especially listening to my second sense that is telling me to replace the decals. Thanks to all of you for the suggestions, which will also be filed away for use on other models. Cheers

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    George R Blair Jr said 1 week, 5 days ago:

    After staring at the decals, I thought that the clear film looked like very flat clear over the paint on the model. I have a bottle of Mig Ultra-flat that I have had for a while. This paint is supposedly ready to spray right from the bottle, so I sprayed the lower wings using the Ultra-Flat. After letting it dry, I noticed that the clear film around the roundels had disappeared. The downside was that it dried in a rough surface. For the top surface, I thinned the paint by about 50% using Vallejo Acrylic Thinner. It sprayed very well. When dry the offending areas on the decals had disappeared, but the surface was still slightly rough. I think it will probably be OK. I added some weathering using a light application of artist oils and turpenoid. I still need to add a lot of small items, such as the pitot tube, the radio antenna, gear doors, and so on, but I think it is basically done. Hopefully done soon. Cheers

    4 attached images. Click to enlarge.