Archive for the ‘Decals’ Category

Mark Tutton at Starfighter Decals graciously sent these two very colorful and great looking sets for review. Both decal sets are of extremely high quality, which we’ve all come to expect from Starfighter Decals.

USN at Coral Sea May 1942

The first set,  USN at Coral Sea May 1942 (Item #72-137), covers three aircraft types: TBD, SBD, and F4F-3 Wildcats. The following aircraft can be built-

• Two F4F-3s from VF-42 aboard the Yorktown
• One F4F-3 from VF-2 aboard the Lexington
• Three SBD-3 from VS-2 aboard the Lexington
• One SBD-3 from VS-5 aboard the Yorktown
• and one each TBD-1 from VT-2 and VT-5

In addition, Mark has included markings “for the SBD-3 photographed after the battle re-painted to promote the exploits of Ens. Lippa and Radioman Liska.” Markings are provided for 1 complete aircraft of each type. Color placement guide with information about each aircraft and builders notes included.

This is a 3rd set from mark’s themed decals for early Pacific War US aircraft, the other two being Pearl Harbor Defenders & USN at Midway 3-7 June 1942. If you are a fan of early-war USN aircraft, you need to get these sets! Price is US$12.00 plus shipping.

Colorful Dauntless

For fans of pre-war USN aircraft, Starfighter Decals has some very colorful options for you. Also newly released is the Colorful Dauntless set (Item #72-138). This contains markings for three aircraft:

• SBD-1 VMB-1 1-MB-7 MCAS Quantico
• SBD-2 2-B-4 (use -3 kit), VB-2 Douglas Plant
• SBD-1 VMB-2 Red Devils 2-B-1 MCAS North Island

National Insignia for 1 aircraft and color placement guide included. Price is US$6.00 plus shipping.

Both of these decal sets are very rich in color, and in perfect register. They are produced by Cartograph, so you can be assured of the highest quality and performance from these decals.

Thanks again Mark for sending these great looking decals for review!

My usual pattern for building a model is to decide on a general subject (which more often than not is a Spitfire or P-40), then decide on a kit, and then decide on markings. However, when I found myself in possession of 3D-Kits “Rotol Spitfires Mk. I & II”, I made the decision based on the markings, and then followed up by finding a kit.

The process started shortly after I’d interviewed Stewart Meikle, the man behind 3D-Kits. I’d used his conversion sets for both a Spitfire LR Mk. II, and a Hurricane IId in some builds, and was very happy with the results. So when I visited my favorite hobby shop in the world, Hayes Hobby House in Fayetteville, NC, I was pleasantly surprised to see several sets of Stewart’s decals available. I decided on the Rotol Spitfires set because it had markings for Eagle Squadron pilot Bill Dunn, an American who flew with the RAF. And I’d also been wanting to build the Airfix Spitfire Mk. I/Ia/IIa I had in the stash. To top it off, not long after I read Bill Dunn’s autobiography, “Fighter Pilot“. So armed with the history, kit and decals, I set off to building! Read the rest of this entry »

Monday we had a look at some gorgeous decal sets from Starfighter Decals. Then on Wednesday, we looked at some of the resin upgrade sets from Starfighter Decals. Today we will finish the week with some photoetch- and more decals!

Many folks know of Starfighter Decals for the products they produce for Monogram’s classic 1930′s biplanes- the P-6E, F112-C, and F4B-4. If you’re like me though, as soon as you hear the word “biplane” you think “rigging”, and say “no thanks!”

Mark Tutton, the man behind Starfighter Decals, has taken those orries away with photoetch rigging sets designed especially for the classic Monogram kits.

Starfighter makes E-Z Rigging sets for for the three kits mentioned above, plus the P-26 Peashooter from Revell. We’ll look at the set for the P-6E and F112-C. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday we had a look at some gorgeous decal sets from Starfighter Decals. Today, we’ll continue with our review of Starfighter Decals products, looking at some resin upgrade sets. (And don’t miss out on part III, with photoetch and more decals.)

Though Mark Tutton produces many different decal, resin, and photoetch products, what Starfighter Decals is best known for are there sets for classic Monogram and Revell 1/72nd kits. Here are some of those resin sets. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the great things about modeling today is the huge variety of decals and aftermarket accessories available for the modeler to choose from. Whether it’s decals, resin sets, photo etch, or just about any other type of accessories, it’s a good bet someone in the world will be making it.

Mark Tutton of Starfighter Decals is one of those people. Mark was gracious enough to send me some great decal, photo etch, and resin sets to share with you, so this week I’ll be featuring Starfighter Decals products. (Be sure and check out part II and part III also!)

Starfighters Decals is well known for the decal and resin sets designed for Monogram’s 1/72 scale biplanes. What you may not know is they also carry products for many other great models, in a variety of scales.

Today we’ll take a look at some very interesting decal sets for pre- and early WWII US aircraft. Read the rest of this entry »

Randie Coulter sent in this preview of an upcoming release from DRAW Decals. Imagine Randie drooling over something to do with fire bombers!

I recently received a large, stiff manilla envelope from DRAW Decal. While humming the theme from ‘Mission: Impossible’, I carefully opened it up.

Inside I found these…..

Wow! They are nice! I slipped on my Optivisor (as I ALWAYS do when looking at new decals) and found if you use the highest magnification, you can actually read the tank data! They are not just some squiggly little black lines meant to represent the tank data. The ‘DANGER PROP ARC’ in white on the red safety stripe is about as close to center as one can expect.

There are decals to represent the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) scoops on the retardant tank, two different styles of anti-glare panels (be sure and research the particular DC-4 you are planning to model) as well as decals that represent the doors and windows. This is a feature used on a lot of the smaller scale airliner models and a nice touch.

When I first glanced at the instructions I thought that Tim had made a grave error, then I went back and read it THOROUGHLY! When I saw DC-6! Oh, no! But, after reading it (when all else fails, read the directions) I realized he was saying you needed to utilize the retardant tank from the Minicraft DC-6 fire bomber kit in conjunction with their DC-4 kit!

In conclusion I highly recommend this set from DRAW if you just have to have an Aero Union DC-4 in your air tanker fleet. N ow, I guess I need to find a 1/144 Minicraft DC-4 and DC-6 kit!

This set is scheduled for release, later this year.

I would like to thank Greg Drawbaugh of DRAW Decal for the review example. I would also like to throw out a thanks to Tim Bradley, Bill Miller and our own Tom Stein for their collaboration on this set. Now, if we could just get some 1/72 DC-7 fire bomber decals to go with Coatrail Models conversion set. * wink, wink *

Randie Coulter
Admin. Scale Firebomber Forum

Randie Coulter sent in this decal review- thanks Randie!

What does Red Gecko Productions and Lone Star Models have in common? They both come from ‘The Resin Prince of Sugar Land, Texas’, Mike West.

Many of you are familiar with Mike’s resin products (and NO! He doesn’t just do fire bomber conversions). He has a lot of items that improve upon existing kits as well as some full blown kits of aircraft that the mainstream companies won’t touch. But, not all of you know that Mike has also started a decal company and I have in my hands, the first 4 sheets of Red Gecko Productions.

As many of you know, I am a self-proclaimed, certifiable fire bomber nut and these first releases are right up my alley!

Sheet #RG-001.48 is a big sheet. You have the option to build one of the three different schemes, worn by the OV-10A’s, of the C.D.F. (California Division of Forestry) over the years (with a little work and some creative masking, you could do all three), as well as three different TBM-3′s, a T-28 and two A-26′s. This is a total of seven different aircraft off of one sheet!

Upon donning the optivisor, what really impressed me about this sheet is the data that is also included. Empty and gross weight information, the restricted placards and even the names in script of all of the air attack bases in California and the propeller logos for the OV-10′s! What is hard to see on the scan is all of the white numbers, for doing just any of the OV-10′s. The only thing missing is the ‘Cal Fire’ script for the bottom side of the horizontal stabilizer and the unit numbers for the upper starboard and lower port wings for the newest scheme.

Everything is in register and they give you the option of using your own shade of green on the early C.D.F. logo. Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Budd submitted these details of his Tamiya 1/48 Bf109E-3 build, using Possum Werks decals created by our late brother in Christ, Tom Meyers.

When the idea of a memorial build for Tom Meyers was first mooted I was spoilt for choice; Tom had previously and very generously sent me a selection of his 1:48 scale Possum Werks decal sheets covering the B-17, Hellcat and (unusually for a decal release) a pilot – Johannes ‘Macky’ Steinhoff. These, together with the Accurate Miniatures (AM) kits I had in the loft, presented a pleasant conundrum deciding which would best honor Tom’s memory.

Instinctively, I felt that the right selection would be a decal sheet, rather than an AM kit. I reasoned that as Tom’s role at AM was Art Director and the decals were of his own creation, that a Possum Werks sheet was the right thing to go for. In tandem with this, it is a little off mainstream for a decal sheet to cover a pilot as I mentioned earlier and so it was obvious that ‘Macky’ Steinhoff must have held a particular and significant appeal for Tom. Well, that clinched it and all that remained was to select which of the four aircraft Tom had included, would wind up on a kit. All the choices are interesting, all are Bf109s and range from an E-3, an F-4, a G-2 through to a G-6. I chose the Battle of Britain E-3 as a natural display shelf partner to my Spitfire MkIIa and Hurricane MkI.

The sheet is printed by Cartograf and includes markings and stencils sufficient to cover all the options featured (very well done Tom!) – many decal sheets don’t cater for the purchaser in this way and that aspect alone makes the release superb value for money. I’d better ‘fess up now – me and decals don’t have an easy time. I own virtually every softener going and still have difficulties with silvering and dropping into panel lines and so forth. These decals actually responded best to Micro Sol; Daco Strong and Gunze Mr Softer beaded up and were ineffective, while good old fashioned Micro Sol had no visible surface tension problems and stayed.

I cured the panel line thing by carefully gliding the tip of a No11 scalpel blade through the markings. Micro Sol then finished them off. The Stencils did have a propensity to silver a little but this was cured by picking them off the wet backing sheet with fine tweezers and touching their under surfaces to a pool of Klear (Future in the US). The silvering occurred despite a very high gloss surface, courtesy of Gunze’s acrylic clear varnish. The Klear eliminates air completely and once the stencils were dry, a semi-mat (eggshell) coat sealed them perfectly.

The Tamiya Emil is a little gem, as you’ll know but with one telling flaw that affects decal placement – the rear fuselage stations (the vertical panel lines on the fuselage) from the the rear of the cockpit back to the tail, should be equidistant but aren’t. This means the fuselage crosses overlap stations, when they should sit the exact width between. This is no fault of Tom’s and the markings are correctly sized so my only option was to overlap.

I hope Tom would have been pleased with the result – I deliberately left the markings un-weathered and as vibrant as they were on the backing paper; as it just felt like the right thing to do.

As a pleasant postscript, the finish, together with Tom’s decals, combined to pick up a very positive and welcome on-line compliment from Lynn Ritger, whose highly respected two part Modeller’s Datafile publication on the Bf109 was a key reference used on this project. I was pleased for Tom and thought it would make him smile – I’ll ask him if I got that right in person one day…

Now go build something!

Randie Coulter gives us his review of some very interesting decals from DRAW Decal for S-2 fire bombers. If you’ve been on modeling forums, you’ve probably encountered Randie. Though he goes by several forum handles, one thing remains the same- Randie has a passion for fire bombers. But it’s not just a modeling thing- Randie truly has a heart for the brave men and women who fly these essential aircraft, and keeps us updated on the Agape forums to keep them in our prayers.  This is the time of year for fires- you can bet that somewhere, a pilot is attacking one from the air.

And I can guarantee you Randie is praying for them, while he checks his decals and kits to make sure he can build the plane!

When the Navy began retiring their S-2′s late ’70′s, four aerial fire fighting contractors, Hemet Valley Flying Service, Aero Union, Sis-Q Flying Service and TBM, Inc. were contracted to convert these planes to tankers. In 1973, the California Department of Forestry (CDF) tested an S-2 out of Hemet, CA, Tanker 71. The tank was loaded from the side and a ‘boxy’ looking affair. Tanker 70 was also built this way, also. In 1974, CDF began putting additional S-2′s in service. The tanks were built for CDF by Aero Union of Chico, CA. In 1974 CDF assigned three different color bands, depending on the contractor. Orange – Hemet Valley Flying Service; Green– Sis-Q Flying Service; Blue – Aero Union. TBM, Inc. never flew the S-2.

Over a period of time, this practice was stopped and all were painted with orange bands as the other colors were
hard to see from above by the lead plane and other bombers coming in.

In the ’90′s CDF began painting the S-2′s in the red and white scheme that is still in use today. Greg Drawbaugh, of DRAW Decals has been doing fire bomber decals for a while now and within the last year or so he has released several new sets researched and drawn by Tim Bradley.

Following are the S-2 sets that are available direct from DRAW Decals. Read the rest of this entry »

Forum member Kevin Johnson (MIflyer) sent in this review of a veritable cornucopia, yea I say a plethora, of Helldiver decals. You could build noting but Helldivers for a couple of years with this one set- great stuff, Kevin!

It’s not often that Victory Productions introduces a new decal sheet, but it never fails to grab the attention of the modeling community when they do. Victory has gained a reputation for large, colorful, high-quality decal sheets, and their latest release is no exception. Fans of the “Big-Tailed Beast” who have had to make do without much in the way of aftermarket decals, will rejoice over this new sheet, which includes markings for no less than seventeen SB2C-4, -4E, and -5 aircraft in four different camouflage schemes.

Victory’s decal sheet focuses on late-war and post-war aircraft. These are late-model Helldivers, appropriate for use with the Monogram/Accurate Miniatures SB2C-4 kits. The SB2C-5s that appear on this decal sheet can be made with relatively minor alterations to the kit, and those changes are clearly outlined in the directions.

Read the rest of this entry »