Hello Friends,
In some of the aircraft kits I have the kit provides a decal for the instrument panel. I’m not ready to hand paint these yet, so I like the idea of the decal. But the instrument panels have raised dials etc. which would be what I would hand paint. My question is, do I sand/file these flat, or do I apply the decal over the raised dials?
I hope that made sense 
Peace-
Boris
Putting the decal over the raised dials can work well…but be aware that, more often than you might think, the spacing on the decal might not match the molded detail.
And then it looks horrible.
If you’re game (with a good eye and a sharp hobby knife), you could try cutting the decal instruments apart and applying them individually. That generally looks best of all!
Next-best would probably be to sand the IP flat…unless it’s got really cool-looking detail.
Good luck.
If you don’t want to use the decals, dry-brushing is also an option to get those raised details to stand out. You can try that out and see if it looks good enough for you, and if not you can resort to more drastic measures.
I’ve had pretty interesting results (given that the register to the raised detail isn’t too far off) by applying the decal and liberal application of MicroSol.
Well the simple answer is if the decal lines up with the raised details then yes, that usually looks great.
As mentioned above you have many options.
Personally I’ll cut up a decal if the details are good, otherwise I’ll just paint the dials in.
One of my most used tricks is to paint the entire guage panel black and fill in the guages with thinned white paint and then maybe a black wash to pick out the details before I add some gloss to simulate the glass. With some practice it looks pretty good.
The best guage panel I’ve done so far was the one in the 1/48 Airfix P-40B. The decal fit like a glove. In contrast the guage decal for my 1/48 Tamiya guage panel had to be “massaged” into place because it wasn’t lining up with the raised details as well. I ended up cutting part of it away and repositioning it.
So you have many options here to explore. Get creative and make sure you have fun with it.
And checkout air scale instrument decals. Very nice results.
What I often do is trace the panel on sheet styrene and cut it out. I apply the decal to this flat sheet. Then I carefully drill out the instrument holes in the panel and paint it with flat black. I put a nice gloss overcoat over the decaled back panel and glue it behind the kit panel. Makes a nice reflection for the instrument glasses.
I’ll have to try that trick, Don. [:)]