Decal Softener

 

I'm not a fan of waterslide decals, but they can make life a heck of a lot easier when it comes to adding markings to these little aeroplane models.

I have hand-painted them in the past, and no doubt I will do so again, but getting everything clean and geometrically perfect with my sausage-fingers is a massive pain in the arse.

The down-side to using decals is that you're pretty well stuck to whatever sizes you have on the sheet. 

These decals from miscmini.com are pretty easy to handle, though they're printed on a continuous film, so they need to be trimmed quite close to the image.

However, they do often need a bit of help to conform to an uneven surface, and that's where a decal softening solution comes in.

I had an old bottle of Mr Mark Softer, which worked well in its day, but it got so old it was basically just water.

Fortunately, decal softener is cheap and easy to make yourself.

The Recipe

• 40% white vinegar
• 40% isopropyl alcohol 
• 20% water (preferably distilled)
• A drop of dish soap to break the surface tension

 The exact proportions aren't vital, and in fact you might want to juggle the proportions of vinegar and IPA to get a more or less aggressive solution. I've found the 40/40/20 ratio to work fine.

I made it up in my old Mr Mark Softer bottle, because it has a brush in the lid that I find convenient.

The Method 

I put some self-levelling gloss varnish where the  decal is to go, as the smoother surface is helpful in avoiding silvering, hiding the carrier film, and aiding adhesion. People have used Johnson's Klear (or whatever the equivalent is these days) for this purpose, and apparently it works well.

I brush some decal softener on to the area where the decal is to go, then place the decal and work it down a bit with a cotton bud, then brush more of the solution over the top of the decal and let it sit for a minute or two before pressing the decal firmly into place. I use a folded piece of toilet paper for this, as it's soft and absorbent, or else a cotton bud. 

When the decal is well set, I brush more varnish over the top to seal all the edges, and when that is properly dry I'll spray matte varnish over the whole lot.