Yet another for my Forum friends. As of late, on a few HO scale cars (decorated Walthers in particular both old and new) that, when I try to put decal solution on the cars, the solution disappears almost immediately. I use both Micro-Sol and Micro-Set. If I put the Set on the cars, it is gone in 2 seconds. The Sol hangs around longer but it is gone within a minute. For a couple of decal projects, I resorted to using regular distilled water to give me the needed work time.
I’ve never had this much problem with solution before. (I’ve decaled around 300 pieces of equipment over the years and never had a problem like this on decorated equipment. I’ve worked with a few undecorated pieces that had the problem but never on decorated pieces.)
I also have some painted pieces that I worked with recently that didn’t have the problem with so I doubt it’s lack of humidity.
Any ideas would be most appreciated.
My workbench is, as is the layout, in a weathered-in space in my barn, between the layout room and my wood shop. I’ve had similar problems.
For me, humidity - which sounds as though it may be the origin of your problems - is a real issue. I live in Northern Lower Michigan, prone to excessive temperature and humidity variations. I never fully realized the impact they’d have until I set up the wood shop 25+ years ago.
When I built both the shop and the layout room, long ago but not at the same time, I weathered both spaces because I learned a lot from others. The way wood moves over temperature and humidity changes is the same in the shop as it is on the layout. To a lesser extent, other substances face the same effect in varying degrees. Then there’s the subject of evaporation.
I never wanted to add humidity either to my shop or my layout room. But having more humidity for things like decals and printing/drying/preparing photos for backdrops is a real concern. There are windows in the shop but I intentionally added none to the exterior walls of my layout room. There is one in my railroad work alcove. All three spaces being weathered in independently of the others, I was able to change the humidity in my workbench area without affecting the other two spaces. I did that by using the window there and adding a few houseplants. Its a small change, but I no longer have the problem of glues, Solvaset, etc., drying faster than I want them to.
There’s nothing ‘scientific’ about what I did, or not by much. But it has had a positive effect. And I’ve managed to keep a few houseplants alive, something I’ve never been known for being very good at. It’s cheaper too, than fighting with costly humidification/dehumidification equipment, monitoring and maintaining it.
I’m in Southeastern Montana so similar weather conditions. I do all my decal applications in my living room. I have done it there for the past three years or so. As said, this is the first time this issue has come up. One of the type of car that has the issue has had decals applied to them before without this problem.
I have a new bottle of Micro-Sol on order so we will.see if that changes anything or solves the problem.