1/32 Tamiya F4U-1a Corsair - Boyington's 17740

[Thunnus]

Getting closer to applying some paints to the fuselage but I have to complete a few things first.  One of them is to attach the tail wheel, which is pinned into place by the a long panel on the fuselage bottom.  I'll have to mask off the tail wheel prior to painting.

 

Conveniently, I've run out of one bottle of AK Real Colors Insignia White so I've used that as a container to mix a slightly lighter shade of the Dark Blue (AK Real Colors) upper camo color.  I've left the AK Real Colors Intermediate Blue alone.  Here is the initial painting of the starboard wing, which features the four-color scheme (which is essentially will boil down to a three-color scheme in this build as I'm not going to differentiate between the semi-gloss and non-specular Dark Blue).  I've varied the uppers with a lighter shade on the fabric areas as well mixing up the colors on the interchangeable ammo cans.

 

The bottom of the starboard wing with the insignia painted on.  I've sealed this side with a gloss coat.

 

The white taped areas have been painted and I've mounted the wings on the fuselage just to see what the two mismatched wings look like.  The horizontal stabilizers have also been painted and have been temporarily slid into place.

 

There is a lot of stencil decaling that needs to go on the wings and I'm taking a look at the Tamiya decals to see if I can get them to lay down properly.  Using the standard Microset/Microsol treatment doesn't do much.  Walters Solvaset  gets the decal to sit into the recessed details but doesn't do anything about the thickness so I'm playing with hot water and possibly Mr Mark Setter and Softer, which I have on order.

[Brett M]

Looking very good to me, with some very crisp paint work. The older paint work on the port wing should provide some nice contrast with the rest of the Corsair. 

 

Maybe I should get to work on my -1(and also fill those rectangles, too) 

[Scale32]

5 hours ago, Thunnus said:

Walters Solvaset  gets the decal to sit into the recessed details but doesn't do anything about the thickness so I'm playing with hot water and possibly Mr Mark Setter and Softer, which I have on order.

Hi John, in my experience I don't think there is much you can do about the thickness of Tamiya's decals with decal solutions although if you find a magic fix ........ The only thing that works for me to some degree is layering clear over them multiple times sanding down in between coats. Very time consuming and not guaranteed to work!

 

Cheers Bevan 

[LSP_Kevin]

Heat is actually my go-to solution when working with Tamiya decals. I usually use a hairdryer, but you do have to be careful about how much heat you use, and how long you use it for; with softer plastics, it's very easy to overdo it and warp the plastic! The other method I've used with success is what I call the hot compress method. This involves heating a moist facewasher in the microwave, and then pressing it on to the newly-applied decal. Again, there are caveats: if you've used acrylic paints or clear coats underneath your decals, this method can reactivate them, and leave an impression of the cloth weave in the surface. With care, though, you can make them look painted on:

 

 

The above decal is from Tamiya's ancient 1/48 Rufe kit, and was around 20 years old when I applied it.

 

Kev

[Scale32]

1 hour ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Heat is actually my go-to solution when working with Tamiya decals. I usually use a hairdryer, but you do have to be careful about how much heat you use, and how long you use it for; with softer plastics, it's very easy to overdo it and warp the plastic! The other method I've used with success is what I call the hot compress method. This involves heating a moist facewasher in the microwave, and then pressing it on to the newly-applied decal. Again, there are caveats: if you've used acrylic paints or clear coats underneath your decals, this method can reactivate them, and leave an impression of the cloth weave in the surface. With care, though, you can make them look painted on:

 

 

The above decal is from Tamiya's ancient 1/48 Rufe kit, and was around 20 years old when I applied it.

 

Kev

What about the thickness Kev, a thick decal is a thick decal. Can you feel the edge of it if you drag your finger over it?  I might try your methods on my next Tamiya build. 

 

Cheers Bevan 

[nmayhew]

lovely to get back to this!

 

have you thought about HGW wet transfers for all the stencils?

 

they make a Corsair set and have zero carrier film and are micron thin etc

 

haven't used them myself (yet) but everyone I have seen laid down looks awesome

 

looking forward to seeing more of this awesome build

 

season's greetings and Merry Christmas

 

Nick

[brewer]

On the topic of thick Tamiya kit decals, this is the kit decal from the 1/32 Tamiya A6M5 built almost 10 years ago (in my heavy shading days haha) applied with just MicroSet and several applications of Solvaset. I sliced the panel lines with a #11 blade and poked some of the rivet holes with a needle point, but other than that it was purely the Solvaset. Even being a thick Tamiya decal, all the surface detail is visible and the carrier film is all but invisible.

 

 

That being said, I would definitely go with HGW's wet transfer stencils as Nick mentioned - fantastic stuff and no carrier film - set #232012

Edited December 27, 2019 by brewer

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!  I've been able to get the Tamiya decals to settle into recesses, even the fine rivet holes, but the thickness remains an issue, especially for many small decals spread out over the airframe. I have an incoming order of Mr Setter and Mr Softer to see if that makes a difference.  I also have an order in for the HGW Wet Transfer stencils for the F4U.

[Greg W]

Here is a link to a technique demonstrated by Phill Flory which is a novel way of removing decal film, leaving the printed image only. You may or may not want to try it but I think it's worth a look.

 

Greg

 

 

 

 

[Woody V]

On 12/26/2019 at 6:05 PM, Thunnus said:

There is a lot of stencil decaling that needs to go on the wings and I'm taking a look at the Tamiya decals to see if I can get them to lay down properly.  Using the standard Microset/Microsol treatment doesn't do much.  Walters Solvaset  gets the decal to sit into the recessed details but doesn't do anything about the thickness so I'm playing with hot water and possibly Mr Mark Setter and Softer, which I have on order.

 

Decals have to be the most misunderstood thing in the history of model building, so let's talk about the science of decals.

 

Decals are made from lacquer ink. Decal prep solution (Micro Set, Mr. Mark Setter, etc) are mild softening agents and should be applied under the decal. Before that dries mild solvents like Micro Sol, Solvaset further soften the decal. Now the magic happens. As the prep solution evaporates the space where it was is displaced by the softened film. Both solutions work together.

 

Because recessed rivets are filled up (or should be) with the prep solution decals will always be drawn down into them. Panel lines are that open on the ends can be problematic because as the prep solution evaporates out the ends and exerts less pull. If you have "silvering" in panel lines, slice through and apply a liberal amount of solvent.  If you have silvering anywhere else, take a sewing needle (not a pin, it's not sharp enough) and stab several holes in the silvered area and apply a liberal amount of solvent (preferable Mr. Mark Setter for it's adhesive property) so that it gets under the decal. Repeat as necessary

 

In our experience we found little to no difference in Micro Sol, Sovaset and Mr. Mark Softer. However Mr. Mark Setter has the unique advantage as it is also an adhesive. We always use Mr. Mark Setter and whatever bottle of solvent is handy.

 

I've not tried it yet but there are modelers who airbrush lacquer thinner over their decals and they all claim it hides the edge of the clear which makes sense since it will literally re-wet the lacquer and cause it to flow. Since the clear is on top of the color part of the decal, it's somewhat protected from bleeding.

In short, the prep solution and the setting solution work together to turn the decal into a jelly-like substance so that it can stretch without breaking. 

Hope that makes sense.

[zaxos345]

On 12/27/2019 at 7:06 PM, Thunnus said:

Thanks guys!  I've been able to get the Tamiya decals to settle into recesses, even the fine rivet holes, but the thickness remains an issue, especially for many small decals spread out over the airframe. I have an incoming order of Mr Setter and Mr Softer to see if that makes a difference.  I also have an order in for the HGW Wet Transfer stencils for the F4U.

Good morning John, wet trasfers are awesome... I have just tried them on my 1/32 bf-109 build. One suggesion though... Before you apply them on the glossed model, try some of them using mr. Mark setter and microscale set respectively. I have found that because of mr. Mark setter being an adhesive also as the last post says, it was difficult to remove the carrier glue after removing the carrier film. Also you could see on the glossed area where the carrier film was placed. May be that has to do with the combination of mr. Mark setter and the gloss varnish. I used the real colors gloss varnish. Anyway, after my experience i made some tests (i was foolish enough not to perform them prior) and i found out that microscale set does the same job and because it is not so tacky it was very easy to remove The Carrier glue With warm water, and there was no placement trace anywhere. 

Wish you The Best With this built also, 

John

 

A quick update...

After a light spray of gloss varnish above the transfers, nothing is visible, not carrier glue nor any placement trace!!

 

John

Edited December 29, 2019 by zaxos345

[Thunnus]

Thanks for all of the comments especially the detailed decal information as well as the recommendations/tips for the HGW wet transfers (which have been ordered from HGW but I don't have any tracking info).

 

I can move forward while waiting to resolve the decal issue. I've glued the vertical tail and started masking in preparation for the imminent painting of the fuselage.

 

The first paint stage is a metal base layer (Tamiya AS-12) on the inner wings for chipping.  I'll be doing a two-stage ZC primer/metal chipping effect in this high wear area using good ole hairspray.

[Thunnus]

After a couple of coats of hairspray had dried, I sprayed Zinc Chromate Yellow (Tamiya) onto the top of the wing.

 

A few hours later, I started working a wet brush over the ZC and it started coming off in large bunches.  I immediately stopped and decided to let the ZC paint dry even further but when I got back to it, I had the same results.  The water was acting like paint thinner and taking way too much of the Zinc Chromate.  So much so that I was able to completely remove it with water with the Tamiya AS-12 completely intact.

 

So back to square one...

Edited January 11, 2021 by Thunnus

[Landrotten Highlander]

could it be that the hair spray you used did not provide sufficient bonding of the chormate yellow (i.e. it is not that the paint dissolved, but rather that is was just 'lying' on top of the hairspray, and not bonded to it)?

enquiring minds want to know so it can avoid making similar mistakes.

[nmayhew]

On 12/27/2019 at 10:21 PM, GDW said:

Here is a link to a technique demonstrated by Phill Flory which is a novel way of removing decal film, leaving the printed image only. You may or may not want to try it but I think it's worth a look.

Greg

 

Phil Flory lol

 

I did watch the vid - that's pretty high risk what he's doing there

 

for this type of marking that's a mask every time

 

I think the only thing I have ever learnt from a Flory vid is using a post-it note to label my sprues, and I've watched a lot of them!

Edited January 2, 2020 by nmayhew