I am building Emhars 1/72 F3H-2 Demon and need to cut the bold “NAVY” decal around the airbrakes which I plan to build open. The “NAVY” Decal partially ovelaps the opening for the airbrake and I am trying to figure out the easiest way to cut the decal. I currently have all the decals in place but decided to hold of on the NAVY decal to figure out how to place it on the model. I have the airbrake painted and gloss coated but do not have it attached to the model as I would prefer to decal it prior to placing the airbrake on the model. Any suggestions are welcome.
I am no expert by any means, but I would put the brake where it goes without gluing it. Put the decal on then take a sharp #11 and cut around the airbrake.
Hold the dive brake in place with Blu-tac or similar.
Apply a layer of Future over the decal (which, presumably, you were going to do anyway) and let dry overnight before cutting round the brake. This strengthens the decal, and helps prevent bits being chipped away by accident.
Check out the striping on this Revellogram 1/48 F-84F:
Thanks, Mucker. I built this in January of this year. It’s the recent-ish Revell Germany re-boing, and includes several attractive colour schemes - worth picking up if you can find it. I decided not to re-scribe the raised panel lines, because they were more subtle than my attempts at re-scribing tend to be, and also, because the model wasn’t going to be weathered to any significant degree, I didn’t think it was necessary.
All the orange striping is provided as decals, and they had to be cut into several sections to get them to go where they were supposed to. It was also my first attempt at spraying a model entirely in Alclad II (well, the natural metal bits, anyway…). Here are some more piccies:
