I’m a die hard tamiya and hasegawa kit guy, but I had bought some academy kits and thought I had discovered something good. Anway to make a long story short. Very nice kit except the decals SUCK. Short of using after market decals and using wet clear-cote does anyone have any suggestions for this problem?
Has anyone else had this problem?
Academy decals are usually pretty ordinary, and I personally never use them when I build their kits. I do know of people that have used them with success though, so it can be done. Try using alot of micro set and sol (or similar decal solutions), and always put them on glossy surfaces. They are usually pretty stiff too, so you might need to put small cuts in them to make them conform the complex curves.
Other than that, all you can do is buy some AM decals.
hope this helps you.
academy decals are pretty much known for ther exceeding mediocracy. just handle them very gingerly, and ensure that the base is extremely well glosscoated before decalling. from my limited experience they havent given too much problems, just be very careful. using future as a decal softener after being thinned with a little water might be a good idea too, if the decals really suck and you dont want to go for expensive AM sets. swannys site has more info on how to use future with decals its www.swannysmodels.com
The two main problems with Academy’s decals are the fact that you need extremely hot water to get them to release from the backing paper and, due to the afore mentioned stiffness, copious amounts of decal setting solution to snug them down.
Beyond that, they’ve never caused me much grief.
My Stratocruiser decals were tricky - long PAA cheatlines which curled up and were binned.
I got a second set and cut them into 4 sections at the panel lines and they went on great over alclad 2 with buckets of micro sol/set.
They must be applied over a very shiny surface and you have to use both sol and set.
I have juse finished the hase 32nd spit II, 41sqn.
These decals suck worse than any academy set that I have used.
Every one has silvered, it ruined a great paint job - Hasegawa decals suck!
Most kit decals from the mainstream kit makers are of low quality. Academy are about the worst, but Tamiya & Hasegawa aren’t much better. I use aftermarket decals whenever possible.
Regards, Rick
I’ll agree and disagree with you Rick;
Yes: a good degree of mainstream kit decals are of generally low quality, I suspect it is because of so many aftermarket decal options out there, that the manufacturers don’t put such an effort into the decals.
Academy decals are nothing special, btu they most certainly are not the worst, in my experience, the worst decals in mainstream kits come in Heller boxes: usually not enough adhesive and the carrier film is usually smaller than the marking that sits on it so you get rough edges, worst aspect of that is that Heller makes some pretty esoteric stuff for a mainstream operator and aftermarket doesn’t always cover the subject matter.
Airfix is also pretty bad on the quality. Ink density is rarely acceptable and the registration is barely ever there.
Oggy:
On the matter of your Hasegawa Spitfire, what setting solution did you use. I don’t know if its still true, but for a while, Hasegawa decals were being made in such a way that the only setting solution that would work with them was Gunze Mr. Mark Softer. If you used that, they would go down beautifully, if you used something else, they would curl and silver.
Gunze dont even sell that much in the UK any more let alone in the west of Ireland!
I am lucky to be able to get micro sol and micro set.
Airfix have always had a bad registry problem, this started around the original Vulcan release.
The current crop of 1/48 kits are better , though.
Paul