Spiros - good advice, especially the idea of using Future. Never heard that one before. Most of your techniques I already use.
TECHMOD DECALS:
This is my first experience with Techmod. They are designed to fit the Monogram kit but you can still use them on GWH. These decals take their sweet time releasing from the carrier sheet unless you soak them in very warm to hot water. Took me some trial and error to figure this out. There is the problem of cracking on the larger or longer pieces. A bit of touch up paint took care of that and it looks fine from 12 inches away.
Techmod is a big improvement over the GWH decals color and fit wise. Once they lay flat and dry, there is none of that irritating excess carrier film glistening away around the edges or between the letters or numbers. Almost completely invisible so high marks on that count. Getting the stars to lay flat over the corrugated wing ribbing is another story, but I imagine anybody's decal would have this problem under such circumstance. Lots of setting solution and patience required. They do look great once they finally settle down.
Techmod's tiny stencils drove me nuts because they insisted on folding almost every time. Once that happened, they were kaput. No way to straighten them out or repair them using the usual methods so I finally gave up and jettisoned them. The white in the stars is a bit transparent but that's ok with me because they really look hand painted and realistic when dry and flat. The three color prop tip decals are too narrow to fit GWH's kit prop but so are GWH's tip decals . Painting is required to fill the gaps. It looks much better to paint all three colors yourself and not use them. Techmod prop tip decals fit the narrower Monogram prop very well but you have to force them to wrap around the edges to eliminate the gap. Sand off the raised marking lines off the Monogram prop tips prior to applying them.
Techmod also provides two vinyl masks with their decal sheet. One for the canopy and the other for yellow wing era color bands plus wheels. Both are designed for the Revell-Monogram TBD-1. The canopy mask does not fit GWH at all but the wheel and band masks work fine with a little help.
In hindsight, I wish I had gone with decals from Yellow Wings, Hannants or Starfighter. (Anybody have experience with the latter?)
I wish Techmod had included some additional Midway markings in addition to duplicating what comes in the GWH kit. I find these particular Techmod decals to be a bit on the fussy side but do you get a lot of bang for your money.
Onwards!
