Hi Guys,
I have been converting an A-B set of Athearn BB F-7 from Santa Fe yellow and blue into NYC Lightning stripe livery. Along the way I installed a Soundtraxx decoder in the A-unit and I am waiting for speakers from Tony’s for the B-unit.
To the point. I stripped of the blue and yellow paint. Cleaned everything in soap and water and primed both shells. Painted them with Floquil Black and let them dry for 3-days.
Yesterday, when I started applying the Microscale decals for the Lightning stripes the decals distorted badly over the cab ladders. Actually lost the white portion of the stripe, top and bottom in places on both units. I use diluted 50/50 Solvaset until the decals lay down. Except for the areas noted, the decals looked great.
The shells are sitting in my utility room with the paint and bad decals removed, drying. I’ll repaint them tomorrow.
Is there a trick I missed along the line. I have to have better results than my latest effort. I am really reluctant to try and paint the stripes on. My skills with an airbrush are nearly 30 years rusty.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Are you asking the decal film to do too much? In relative terms we are asking a thin white decal to stretch across the Grand Canyon, and then settle in with a little solvaset to put a stripe across the whole canyon.
You might want to cut the decal to fit up to the hand rail, under the rungs of the ladder and small pieces laid on the hand rail and on the ladder steps themselves. I know very very tedious, but it may give you the results you are looking for/and or a very fine paint brush and a matching paint to the decal. We were never promised easy, it isn’t spelled out in the modellers contract, even RTR need to have handrails installed, wheel sets gauged etc.
Good luck with the project, hopefully someone else will have the “easy” trick for us.
Will
Hi Allan,
I think Will is right, You’re stretching the decal a lot farther than it wants to go! Lay the decal over the ladder, gently slice it with a razor blade then tuck it down with a toothpick and apply the Solvaset. You might need to use a spot of paint to fill the voids, but if you’re careful it’ll look perfect!
I need to jump in on this one (sorry).I’m kind of in the same boat. I repainted two F units to CP Rail colors and applied all the decals with success except for the white stripes on the nose.There’s a lot of contour to deal with there(like the ladders) and I don’t know if it can really be done or not? Can anyone PLEASE help out with this? I have WAY too much work in this to screw it up on the last decal.