Homemade decals

[falo]

Hi Gents,

I use a 1/48 „Luft 46“ kit as a testbed for homemade decals. The „Gotha Go P60“ is a multimedia kit (resin, pe, white metal, a small plastic sheet and vacuum formed parts) offered by Antares Models (Argentina): http://www.antaresmodels.com/php/web/index.php/seccion/detail?id=15

My aim was to generate a perfect wood look, because – similar to the Horten 229 – most of the „Go P60“ fuselage was done from plywood.


Step 1: Preparation
I scanned various plywood sheets and scale the scans down to 1/48 to get the accurate wood grain. While working in the prepress industry I used Photoshop for all these kind of operations. An important feature of Photoshop is IMO – amongst many others - the colour management. So – if the prepress system is colour calibrated from scanner to Photoshop to the display and finally the fine art printer – you have a „what you see is what you get“ workflow. For my decal printing proposal a helpful thing, because I was able to control the colour shades of the wood during working on the printing data file. Please see „001.jpg“: This is the first data file for decal printing. The bright lines are the outlined panels from the „Go P60“ fuselage. I transfered the panel outlines of the airplane to transparent paper to scan them and join them to the wood areas.

Stay tuned

 

[falo]

Step 2: Printing on a decal sheet.
There are two kinds of sheets to buy for homemade decals: white and clear. White was my choice. By the way: central issue of homemade decal printing is to reproduce white on a clear sheet, IMO a MicroDry printer can solve that problem. But as said before I use the white sheet for my wood grain decals. My local hobbyshop provided me with the decal paper. Don’t know if there is another fabricator here in Germany for decal sheets than „Aircolor Act Technik“ (?). You get two sheets for 10,00 EURO, a stiff price and a stimulus not to screw the prints. After resuscitating my wallet I started printing and it went on sucessfully („003.jpg“).
The producer of the decal paper advises to seal the sheets with clear varnish. I used – straigt from a rattle can – a „Mr. Hobby“ product. After drying I repeat the sealing two times and let the sheets cure for a few days. Impatience during prepariation is like a fish out of water here.

To be continued
 

[falo]

Step 3: Sealing the sheets and the kit
I sealed the whole resin fuselage with a gloss clear varnish (please see „004.jpg“). As usual the best primer solution for decals to avoid silvering – if you use clear decals – and to get a smooth surface for decals on white papers. As you can see on „004.jpg“ I gave the fuselage a washing to bring out the panel lines. This is very helpful when placing the waterslide decals.

What's next?
 

[falo]

Step 4: Applying the decals
The homemade decals („005.jpg“) can be applied in the familiar manner. But you have to realize that the homemade waterslides are not that thin as the Cartograph ones for example. So you need decal setter and softer, I used „Mark Softer“ and „Mark Setter“. But you can also use thinned white glue (diluted with water) as a setter solution and a mixture from vinegar, water and dish soap instead of the softer product. For the edges I used „Mark Setter“ and the thinned white glue.

Only one step left ...

[falo]

Step 5: Pictures
Hereinafter some pictures of the decaling progress („006.jpg“ to „010.jpg“).

Hope this post will be helpful. If there are any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards
Falo

P.S.: Will start a built report about the Antares Kit „Gotha Go P60“ during the next weeks in the „Luftwaffe“ section: Promised! But first of all I have to watch the European Football Championship   ;-)
 
 
 

[SG]

Stunning, Falo! Great result, Congrats!!

[Rokket]

Reeeeally interesting project, never mind the decals which are great!

[falo]

Hi SG, hi Rokket,


thanks for your kind reception of this "homemade" thread.


Regards
falo