Howdy! I have found myself the guest of honor at a butt-whoopin’, and sure could use some advice.
I’m building an Academy 1/32 scale Camel for a client. It’s going okay, but today I started the decals. The roundels are in 3 or 4 layers. The bottom layer is white, and is pretty opaque. When I put it down on the ribs of the upper wing, it just wrinkled up and darn near crawled off the wing! Neither Micro Sol nor Set did the trick. I thought it was going to snuggle down, but when it dried, about 80% of it had lifted. 3 iterations didn’t help.
I’m putting the decals on a good gloss coat. Are there better decals than the Academy kit sheet? Is there a technique that will get 'em to flatten out?
Wess Rodgers
Albuquerque, NM
You might use future a a setting agent
Thanks for the tip! Future works for everything else, so I tried it. No joy. The decal lay down flat when it was wet, but as it dried, it pulled taught across the tops of the ribs, and ended up with almost none of the decal even touching the surface of the wing. I tried pressing it down into the contours with a piece of foam, but the decal ripped. Ggrr!
I’m experimenting with masking the markings and painting them.
Wess
Wess–
I believe it was Steve (Blackwolf3945 Take Two) who did up a tutorial on what you are attempting…although I can’t seem to find his website…hopefully he’ll chime in…
I hope so, too. I’m experimenting with photo frisket paper. How do you get that stuff to conform to contours so you don’t spray under it? Even though I sprayed away from that exposed edge, there was still some bleeding.
I’ll try anything that doesn’t involve birds or small mammals. 
Wess