Most of the bigger paintwork has been done regarding Tamiyas Phantom. Tamiya provides masks for the canopy, but they are unfortunately not pre-cutted. I find it strange, taking in consideration that pre-cutted masks is more a de-facto than not.
Especially as the Tamiya is a quite expensive kit.
Nevertheless, the masks did almost their job, some leaking in one corner, which I need to fix carefully still.
Decaling work started already a week ago, step by step.
Slightly disappointed with the decals.
My findings
A) The decals need to stay in water very long time and even then, they are sort of "sticky" when trying to slide off the paper.
B) When finally attached, then that stickyness is sort of vanished and there are difficulties to keep it in place, which is annoying as the water under the decal must gently been pushed/pressed away, the decal is like floating.
C) They are quite fragile, despite that they are thick. A number of decals have broken already. For example the shark mouth lost the "lower jaw", a small decal, just broke into 2 pieces, while trying to "build it back" , it broke up to a 3 pieces... had to skip the lower jaw entirely.
D) Tamiya decals, at least in this F-4B kit, are thick like cardboard. Difficult to get them to conform on the surface. I have used Tamiyas own Mr Mark Extra Strong decal setting several times, even the day after and so on. Some parts of the (same) decal comforms on the surface, other not! Which is sort of crazy.
E) Lessons learned, despite wonderful kit, excellent engineering, joy to build etc etc. But the weak point is the decals.
SO, next time, I go directly with aftermarket decals.
Mr Mark Extra strong setting is hot. It kicks-in, in perhaps already 20-25 seconds, so if you have applied it, then you defintely cannot any longer move the decal. But it works well, but the decal is too thick however to comform
So ja, still some decaling to go and then starts the gear show!
- Kari
