Have you ever had a decal just up and vanish? I have.
I was preparing a wing root marking for my 1/48 scale F-86 Sabre, which is nothing but a black outline. I was removing it from the cup of water with a set of tweezers when a slip of the hand released the decal into… nothing. I assumed it would be easy to find, as I don’t think it traveled far from the cup, but search as I might, it was nowhere to be found. I searched the entire desktop, my clothes, and the floor. Zilch, zero, nada. It had vanished completely!
Now I’ve never been a believer in the “black hole” theory of modeling, but now I’m not so sure. Weeks from now, after I’ve replaced it, the decal will reappear just as mysteriously as it vanished, and I’ll be left scratching my head.
Apart from small parts I’ve lost a 1:32 spitfire canopy, a p-51 rudder and u/c doors, and the main gun turret from a corvette, all off the workbench and never seen again…the carpet monster is too powerful!
Haven’t had that happen to decals yet (knock on wood) but I have with ultra-small styrene parts and Photoetch. My wife told me to put a nylon knee high over the vac hose, tape it off securely, and go over the suspected areas of the drop. Lo and Behold it works!! I would imagine it would work with a dust devil too.
AND… just as mysteriously as it disappeared, it magically reappeared. I found it in the bottom of the cup of water, and although it was curled and on it’s side, I know I checked the cup earlier… twice!
I realize my eyesight is getting worse as I age, but… really? I’m just glad the disappearance resolved itself before I broke down and made another.
Although I heartily endorse the ‘black hole’ theory – and believe there’s probably a particular planet in some distant galaxy with all our lost modeling ‘stuff’ in orbit around it – I’ve also had tiny-ish decals adhere themselves unseen to the sides of my hand or little finger more often than I am comfortable admitting. Amazingly, I’ve even occasionally been able to successfully recover and use those errant decals on a couple of occasions.
FSM had an article about working with PE. It suggested placing the PE in a sandwich bag before cutting. Neat idea, and though I don’t usually use a lot of PE, that stuck with me.
Or on the sticky side of a post it note. That’s the one that has stuck (no pun intended) with me. Aaron demonstrates it in an FSM video on PE. I haven’t ever worked with PE, but it’s coming fairly soon and when I do, I intend to use this method.
One thing I am enjoying about Meng kits, the PE comes with a sheet of fairly thick clear plastic with mild adhesive, and they put it on both sides of the brass/steel. This allows you to remove only one of the films, and cut away without fear because the second sheet of “tape” is holding it down.
PE has a mind of its own. You can have everything (cutting it off the fret, bending, painting) done securely and smoothly, then at the final moment when you have it in the tweezers ready to be glued on, it springs off and flees into the ether.
I am resigned to the fact that PE exists to drive us all nuts!
I have had a large number decal vanish into thin air once. But a friend who is clairvoyant took one step into my room and said “there it is”, pointing to my overhead light fixture. How it floated off my hands and flew upwards and onto the light shade I have no idea. Maybe the black hole was drawing it in, but it got hung up on the light? The decal could not be saved, as it had several days to dry there.
Because of that incident, I had to punt and use another set of numbers from the decal sheet. So that “B4” on the model is technically not correct.
Decals are so thin that they have a very light “wing loading.” If they momentarily become flat horizonal during the fall, they can do a falling leaf maneuver, and land very from the drop point.