I have just repainted a couple of F7s black with a scarlet stripe around the base and a silver bit on the nose, (the easy part). I have had a Microscale decal sheet in my supplies for probably about 4 years now, so I thought I was all ready to go. Wrong! The decals for the nose (silver and orange stripes) are totally useless. It is pretty much impossible to place the decal in the exact position straight off so a little movement afterwards is necessary to get them in the correct position. Here is where it all goes wrong. The decals are so fragile that they just break into pieces immediately. I now have two nicely painted F7s but no decals to finish them with. Does anyone know of a manufacturer other than Microscale that produces an HO set of Black Widow decals that will go on in a reasonable manner. (The masking to do it with paint would be to much of a fiddle I would imagine. Masking not being one of my most favourite pastimes in this great hobby).
After reading your post, a couple of things come to mind. First of all, 4 year old decals might be part of the problem if they haven’t be stored in a cool, dry environment. Secondly, you might want to use another Microscale product called Micro Set when applying your decals. Another product you might want to try for restoring long in the tooth decals is Microscale’s Decal Film.
As stated earlier, old decals can become tremendously fragile, and will break apart exactly as you describe. I differ a little in that 4 year old decals aren’t to be trusted no matter where they have been stored.
I have also heard of some folks overspaying the paint with Testors Glosscoat, in order to provide an absolutely slick surface upon which to mount the decals. I haven’t tried this, but it sounds good, anyway. Anyone have any input on that?
In any event, start with new decals and use the setting solutions made by the decal manufacturer. Microscale decals are actually quite good, and their setting solution will help you along. I’ve done a few of these through the years and they do come out nicely. A little patience and a fresh set of decals will do the trick.
The main problem now is getting a new set of these decals. Microscale have none, and all of the on-line hobby stores I have frequented in the past have no stock. The sheet I had has two sets of orange /silver nose stripes (87-201). The first try I used Micro set and this is the one that disintegrated when I tried to reposition it. I have now managed to ‘succesfully’ apply the second set by just using water initially. The silver part that goes around the lower headlight and joins with the silver paint on top of the nose disintegrated but the silver and orange wings stayed together to be positioned, then I applied micro-sol to set them down nice and tight. I actually cut the decal in two at the centre to make it a bit easier to manage. I then touched up the silver area with paint, so it doesn’t look too bad now. I am hoping the remaining number and lettering decals go on without too much disaster now. However, this still leaves F7 number two without orange and silver wings!! I think you are all correct about the age of the decals being the problem because I have never had this kind of thing happen before with Microscale decals and I have done quite a bit of repainting and decaling of both locomotives and freight/passenger cars in the past as well as a lot of plastic aeroplanes.
Old decals can be very difficult to handle. They usually break very easy so my solution if I am forced to use them is to use warm water to soak them in. This softens the material but you still have to float them on without pushing and pulling them except in very light applications with a brush. There is no sure thing, but if the decal softens up, it will be possible to get them to the position you want. The float method will allow a decal to be moved and then when it is in place, you use a paper towel at the edge to remove the water out from under the decal.
It sounds like your second try went as it should, congratulations!
The best way to save older decals (2 years or more) is to coat them with Microscale’s Liquid Decal Film, one note: if you coat the whole sheet, then you have to cut the decal close to the printed edge as the liquid film will seal the whole sheet.