I’ve laid down 81 decals so far and all I have done are the stencils behind the fuselage red band, the national insignia and the serial number.
As I feared, the white of the national insignia was translucent. So, it was just as well I masked and sprayed the white discs (perfect size, by the way) to fix this.
To prevent losing the decals due to handling while laying down the rest of the decals, I’ve sprayed them with a clear gloss.
I also sprayed the black on the upper surface of the stabilisers. These seemed to have some sort of black protective coating on the Australian jets , but only on the top surface. I have a picture in a book showing this peeling off on one aircraft, so it looks more like a thin film rather than paint. It also looks to be slightly translucent in som photos.
I used SMS PL23 Clear Black, which actually has indigo overtones. I may have sprayed one coat to many as it has lost most of the translucent look, but I like the effect. It looks black in a different way to the black radome, for example.
