I have been getting into decal projects and have been having a lot of fun with it. Besides water and a pair of tweezers, what do you guys use to help make the process easier?
I find myself getting frustrated sometimes when I tear a decal or put on in the wrong spot and cant move it without scrping it off and cutting a new one. And sometimes I accidently pull decals off on accident when handling the car or loco. I fixed that by not moving it too much and spraying light coats of dull cote on the finished section on the car.
What else makes life easier?
Trim each decal as close as possible all around. Then soak it in distilled water til the decal film starts to loosen from the backing paper. Place the decal, still on the backing paper, in just the right location. Carefully slide the decal film off the backing paper and tease it into position, carefully so as not to tear it. Let it dry enough to keep it in position. Then apply decal setting solution, Solvaset from Walthers, generously with a soft brush. Let that dry all the way. Do not attempt to move the decal after applying the Solvaset. It softens the decal film to let it snuggle down around rivets and stuff. If you try to move the decal while soft it will tear every time. Give the decal overnight, maybe a day and a night to get really dry. Then give the whole model a coat of DullCote to blend the decal into the paint job.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
20201109_215455 by wp8thsub, on Flickr
20201109_215455
I've been painting and decaling a number of cars lately, including the one above from a Moloco kit.
For larger decals like the road name, I remove them from the water with a sheet of thin styrene, then slide from the styrene onto the car. This helps prevent the decal from folding or tearing as it's moved.
Ringo58I find myself getting frustrated sometimes when I tear a decal or put on in the wrong spot and cant move it without scrping it off and cutting a new one.
I don't have this problem often. I tend to flood the area with plenty of a milder solvent like Micro Sol as I place the decal, so I have time to move it on the liquid before anything sets up. If I notice the decal got into the wrong position, I add enough water to counter the solvent action, and then carefully move it.
And sometimes I accidently pull decals off on accident when handling the car or loco. I fixed that by not moving it too much and spraying light coats of dull cote on the finished section on the car.
If decals come off readily, it's typically an indication there was insufficient solvent applied to fully dissolve the film into the surface. A properly finished decal job should be more than durable enough to withstand normal handling. With plenty of solvent, followed by a final overspray of clear matte or gloss, the job should last a lifetime.
I use a small screwdriver with rounded edges for positioning decals. It helps finalize positioning without tearing the decal film or scratching the paint.
When working with white lettering, I use a darker container for the water so the decals are easily visible if they float off the backing. Likewise I use a lighter color for dark lettering.
I place the model on foam material from locomotive packaging for protection while working on it.
Keep a magnifying glass handy to locate the right lettering on the sheet, which is especially useful when the lettering and backing are similar colors. Sometimes it's necessary to add more light, including shining a bright light from behind the decal sheet, to see the really small stuff.
These ideas are basic enough, but easy to forget at times.
Rob Spangler
I never use tweezers, I use a toothpick and cotton swabs.
I also use micro set and micro sol and let the decal dry overnight between the two applications.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I cut my decals on a sheet of glass.
Once the decals are cut off the sheet, I place them on a wood block then use a fine tipped paintbrush to wet them down. Then I wait about 25 or 30 seconds for the carrier film to separate from the paper.
Then I pick the decal off the paper using the paintbrush, and set in place on the model. (Sometimes I put a drop of water on the freshly placed decal , to aid in positioning. )
I also use water warmed to 70 degrees. (Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, I was told that decals are made by a photographic process. I use to developed my own film, and it requires the water tobe at70 degrees. )
I always glosscote the surface to be decalled , lay on whatever decals I need, then let them dry overnight. Then solvaset and again let them set overnight. Pop any air bubbles that developed, an lightly solvaset again.
When I'm happy with the way they look, I glosscote again to seal the decals. This last glosscote helps to hide the decals edges and makes it easy to weatherize after. Then dullcote to blend it all together.
Rust...... It's a good thing !
As with soldering, or lubrication, or foam as a structural layout material, there have been some epic 'technical' discussions of decal 'best practice' here, and you might want to find and review them.
I'm on a phone, where you have to click the mystery-meat 'three little horizontal black bars' at the top, select 'community' from the bar choices that come up, and scroll all the way down to the bottom where a gray search rectangle awaits. Kalmbach IT got this working a few months ago after a long 'hiatus'.
Hi Ringo,
This is seriously one of those "cat skinning" subjects. There are 1,000 ways to do it, and 950 of them will work just fine.
This is me:
1: Start with a glossy surface. Scalecoat 2 is perfect.
2: Let the decal soak until it is loose on the carrier paper.
3: Slide the decal off the paper in the water, wiggle it around to get the release agent off of it, and slide it back onto the decal paper.
4: Use tweezer to take the decal and paper out of the water.
5: Touch the decal paper to a paper towel to remove excess water.
6: Coat the model with Micro-Sol. Slide the decal into the Micro-Sol and move it into position.
7: Allow the Micro-Sol to dry.
8: Apply Daco Strong and allow it to dry.
Daco Strong is the secret... this stuff is worth its weight in gold.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Thanks for the tips guys! I will see if my LHS has any microsol tomorrow.
This is my current project. All the decals on it were put on with my finger. Oops
Ringo58Thanks for the tips guys! I will see if my LHS has any microsol tomorrow.
Ringo,
Decal setting solutions come in different strengths. I have tried them all, and this is my impression on there strength from weakest to strongest:
1) Daco Weak
2) Microscale Microset
3) Daco Medium
4) Microscale Microsol
5) Testors Model Master Decal Setting Solution
6) Tamiya Decal Setting Solution
7) Walthers Solvaset
8) Mr. Hobby Decal Setter
9) Daco Strong
If I could only have one, it would be Microsol.
Note 5) Testors Model Master seems to be exactly the same as regular Testors.
Note 7) Walthers Solvaset is not consistent in the strength.
Ringo58This is my current project. All the decals on it were put on with my finger. Oops
I see a toothpick in the picture. This is a very useful tool for applying decals, and dirt cheap too.
I use a rubber coated chopstick to slide decals into position and a toothpick to work them into details.
Ringo58 Besides water and a pair of tweezers, what do you guys use to help make the process easier?
I always thought that decal application was easy, but when I saw some of my results (and those of some other modellers, too) I knew that it needed to be done better.It turned out to be a more lengthy learning process than I thought, but I finally started getting better and better results, so my process may be a little more than you really need (or want) to know....
First, I would suggest that you wash the car (or locomotive, structure, etc.), using warm water and dish detergent, then rinse it thoroughly with water and let it air-dry.Once it’s dry, airbrush it in an appropriate colour(s), then set it aside to let the paint dry/cure/harden, depending on the type of paint you use.Once that is done, airbrush the entire areas which will be decalled with Glosscote (or your preferred clear gloss) then let it fully dry until there’s no odour of solvent present on the car. Don’t apply the gloss only where the decals will be applied - for rolling stock and locomotives, those areas are usually the sides and ends - cover them completely with the gloss, even if the amount of decal work will be very minimal. Allow the clear coat to fully cure/harden - there should be no noticeable odour to it, (this minimises the chance of the setting solutions reacting with the clear coat).Next, use a sharp blade to cut the needed decals from the sheet, keeping as far away from the lettering as possible. Once you have all of the required lettering free of the main sheet, use a sharp blade (re-sharpen or replace as necessary) and working on a hard surface (I use a sheet of glass on my work desk for this), to trim away as much of the blank paper from as close as you can maneuver the blade to the lettering, using a straight down chopping motion, rather than slicing it away. If necessary, do this work under magnification (eyeglasses, Optivisor, or loupe).The reason for the two-part cutting is that slicing the image, even with a sharp blade, raises the edges along the cut line, and when you apply that decal to the model, the setting solution is often insufficient to make those edges settle completely flat onto the surface. Using a chopping motion has a couple of advantages, first that it allows you to position the tip of the blade as close as possible to the lettering, and second, that when you bring the blade down to make the cut, the chopping movement pushes the edge of the decal downward, which will allow better and easier setting of the lettering when it is time to apply that solution. Another tip to decrease the chances that your lettering job will look obvious as decals, is to trim the excess clear film from rounded letters or numerals such as B, C, O, P, 2, 3, 8, 0, etc. which are at the beginning or end of a block of lettering.
F’rinstance, on a CANADIAN NATIONAL car, I would use a simple diagonal chop to remove the clear film from the top and bottom left side of the “C”, and the clear film from the “L” at the end of NATIONAL - this latter chop could be a simple diagonal from the top to the right edge of the foot, but an L-shaped cut would give even better results.The same trimming can be applied to dimensional data, too, even if you apply it in the blocks in which it’s printed. For example....CAPY 100000LD LMT 120000LT WT 49000....trim the top left corner of the “C”, the top right corner of the last “0” in the top line, and the bottom right corner of the last “0” in the bottom line with a simple diagonal chop. You will be surprised by how much difference it can make in the finished appearance.Use distilled water for soaking the decal - it's available in gallon jugs at any supermarket, and not at all expensive. This eliminates any dissolved minerals which might otherwise be present in tap water, and a gallon will do a lot of decals. Do not rush the soaking process for the decal, but allow it to release from the backing paper on its own. If it's big enough to handle with tweezers (not something small, such as a single digit for dimensional data), dip the released film into water, submerging it completely, then, as you withdraw it from the water, drag the back-side of it over the lip of the container holding the water - this helps to remove any residue left from the backing paper. Depending on the particular decal, you may want to repeat this a couple of times. Smaller decals, like blocks of dimensional data or single numerals, can be simply dipped into the water, then set on your work surface while the water frees them from the backing paper.
Most decals applied using only water can be re-wet and moved an almost infinite number of times. For very small pieces of decal (a single letter or numeral, or even a period or comma, I place the dry decal near its intended place, then wet it with a drop of water on my fingertip or the end of a knife or tweezers. It can usually be slid off the backing paper easily, then maneuvered into place. Use references on the model (rivet lines, panel lines, doors, ladders, and other details) as guides to position the lettering correctly and level. Where those details aren't available, I like to cut strips of masking tape as guidelines, and when lettering with individual letters or numerals, often use a pencil to denote, on the tape, the beginning and end of each word, so that the spacing is correct. Likewise, individual letter spacing is not usually uniform, but rather depends on the particular letters and their sequence within the words. Google "kerning" for more info. Once the decals have been applied on the gloss surface and have been blotted using a clean cloth, I use a small brush to apply a fairly weak setting solution around the perimeter of each individual pieces of decal, and also on the decals’s surface - Microscale’s Microset works well for this step. Let the decals dry fully - it usually takes 10 or 15 minutes at most.Next, I use the brush-in-cap from the Solvaset bottle to apply this stronger decal setting solution, in the same manner as the previous operation. I let this dry completely (a couple hours at least, although I often leave them overnight) then use a clean cloth over my fingertip, dipped in the distilled water to wet it, then gently rub the wet cloth over each piece of the applied and set decals - this should remove any marks left by the action of the Solvaset. Use a dry portion of the same cloth to remove any remaining water from the model’s surface.After the decals have been cleaned and have fully-dried, I overspray them with another coat of clear gloss. This step may seem unnecessary, but the gloss of the decal seldom matches exactly the gloss of the surface on which it has been applied. This overspray ensures that the entire surface has a uniform finish. If you're using an airbrush for applying the clear finish, it will dry (to-the-touch, at least) very rapidly, and you can then apply the flat (or semi-gloss, if you're modelling a fairly new car) almost immediately. After this step, the decal work is completed, and the car set aside, usually at least overnight or for a day-or-so to let the clear coats fully harden. Airbrushing gives you the option of mixing that final clear coat to whatever sheen or flatness you wish for that particular model. The car can then be weathered as you wish, but unless you're weathering using oils or chalk, I'd recommend no flat overspray over the weathering, as it usually makes the weathering effects too uniform.
Wayne
You should not use a hobby blade to remove air bubbles from underneath a decal as it is moved into position. This will create additional problems when you try to settle/bond the decal to the surface. The hole will actually let air back beneath the decal as the fluid dries, and it creates a weak spot likely to tear of you need to position the decal again.
If you have air bubbles under the decal, lift the decal, brush on more fluid, and lay the decal back in place.
Experimentation yields good results. That is how I ended up with so many decal setting fluids before I finally settled on Microsol and Daco Strong as my best options.
Thanks for all the help. I think I will wait to finish the other side of this car when I have the soutions and gloss cote. This side turned out okay and I am happy with it
I added the Milwaukee Road logo in the upper left had corner because I like it.
Wayne, I figured out the chop method this morning and let me tell you, it made cutting them a whole lot easier
Ringo58I added the Milwaukee Road logo in the upper left had corner because I like it.
Way to go! Always make your projects the way you like them.