I’ve been a faithful user of Solvaset for years and it truly does live up to its reputation. It’s worked very well for me on my Locos and rolling stock adhering my decals over rivets, blower panels, and just about every other deviation on the styrene surface. However, I think I have a challenge that just may have caused Solvaset to meet its match. I have many Walthers N high cube containers with corrugated sides that I desire to apply some homemade decals to. Compared to some old loco rivet, these corrugations look like the Grand Canyon! Can Solvaset be used on these ribbed sides and will it adhere decals down into those grooves? Any help will be appreciated.
Indeed, Solvaset should do the trick, providing that the decal film is quite thin, this varying from manufacturer to manufacturer. However, it may well take multiple applications of Solvaset to do so, even for the thinnest decal film.
One potential hazard in this sort of situation you’ll have to be looking out for is if the corrugations on the model are really deep the small decal lettering may distort as the decal attempts to settle down fully into the hollows in the corrugation.
Not sure if this helps - I’m more a steam era / transition era guy - but what I do on say a woodsided boxcar or reefer is apply the Solvaset until the decal is really adhering good and 'snuggled down", then take a razor blade and run it in the gaps between the wood slats to cut the decal, then apply more Solvaset. Otherwise the decal never seems to get all the way down into the gap and it looks wrong. (I’m in HO so it’s more noticeable than it would be in N of course!)
The key here is “home made decals”. If you are making them on an ink jet printer, the decal has to be coated to prevent it from bleeding, and using Solvaset on this type of decal increses the possibility of bleed. If you use a clearcoat spray like Glosscote to seal the decal, the coating will interfere with softening the decal film and it will not fall or sag into the corrugations.
Based on my experience with this senario, I doubt you would be able to get Solvaset to work; or, if it did, the clearcoat would crack and the Solvaset would attack the decal printing. The best thing is to try one and see if it works or not.
My experience with decals and solvaset is that in the past I’ve had to apply two or three coats of solvaset to make those tough decals eventually lay down into all the nooks and crannies. Once the decal is applied and dries, a thin coat of dulcote is sprayed over the decal to hide the decal seams…chuck
Thanks guys. Yes, I did fail to point out that these are inkjet, waterslide decals…not to thick to my knowledge. I like the razor blade idea from the one poster. It would seem to cause the decals to form into “strips” that would indeed lie down snuggly into those grooves when Solvaset is applied. Absolutely excellent advice, thanx again.