Post by grgbobe on Jul 15, 2021 22:50:34 GMT
So, being risk averse, I'd never waste a decal from Flight Deck Decals, would I? Or would I?
Here's a Hancock decal from FDD on a long hull Essex class carrier from Tiny Thingamajigs in FUD. This one was a poor print and was eventually replaced by the grey primered one you'll see below. It had the image of another ship on it's deck (actual rough material...I think another ship was actually printed on its deck) and it's starboard side isn't FUD-level smooth, either. I didn't really do anything about the side of the hull, but I took a flat-bladed x-acto blade to the deck and not only shaved off the image of the other ship, but I shaved off the raised parts...including raised deck arrestor lines and some other various doo-dads (real USN technical term). This left me with a fairly smooth deck (or so I thought) that I primed in white and then noticed all of the raised lumps that will show through the decal and got my blade out and started shaving again.
The first thing I noticed once I did a dry-fit was that the recessed lines on the deck didn't match the areas they represented on the decal, e.g. the elevators weren't in the right spot and some of the recessed "lines" across the deck didn't match up with the lines on the decal, either. I thought, "ah-hah, I finally have a use for that liquid green-stuff I bought!" Unfortunately, it was already dried out. Boo. I tried to soften it back up with water and had some marginal success, but it wasn't great. Once that cured, I could see I still had some work to do and carefully filled in some of the recesses with gloss varnish. And then again.
Now, I had a deck that was "flat-enough" for me and I applied the decal. It looks good to me, but I cut the port elevator part of the decal too far and there are 4 raised posts (I think they represent taller antennas or something) on the starboard side of the deck that I had to cut little indents to make the decal fit and I see that I was a little too deep on my cuts for those.
Anyway, this should answer the question of whether or not you can use a FDD decal on a Shapeways/Tiny Thingamajigs Essex carrier...I probably wouldn't recommend buying an Essex from Shapeways for this, but if you have one sitting around because you haven't worked up the courage to paint it like me...at least you can work a decal to make it look good on top!
Only 4 more Essexes to paint and decal...one more without dazzle and the other 3 with...now, where's my courage?
As always, thanks for looking!
With another Shapeways/Tiny Thingamajigs Essex (so you can see all of the raised areas to be shaved):
With a WOTC Essex:
With a Ghukek/XPForge long-hull Essex:
Here's a Hancock decal from FDD on a long hull Essex class carrier from Tiny Thingamajigs in FUD. This one was a poor print and was eventually replaced by the grey primered one you'll see below. It had the image of another ship on it's deck (actual rough material...I think another ship was actually printed on its deck) and it's starboard side isn't FUD-level smooth, either. I didn't really do anything about the side of the hull, but I took a flat-bladed x-acto blade to the deck and not only shaved off the image of the other ship, but I shaved off the raised parts...including raised deck arrestor lines and some other various doo-dads (real USN technical term). This left me with a fairly smooth deck (or so I thought) that I primed in white and then noticed all of the raised lumps that will show through the decal and got my blade out and started shaving again.
The first thing I noticed once I did a dry-fit was that the recessed lines on the deck didn't match the areas they represented on the decal, e.g. the elevators weren't in the right spot and some of the recessed "lines" across the deck didn't match up with the lines on the decal, either. I thought, "ah-hah, I finally have a use for that liquid green-stuff I bought!" Unfortunately, it was already dried out. Boo. I tried to soften it back up with water and had some marginal success, but it wasn't great. Once that cured, I could see I still had some work to do and carefully filled in some of the recesses with gloss varnish. And then again.
Now, I had a deck that was "flat-enough" for me and I applied the decal. It looks good to me, but I cut the port elevator part of the decal too far and there are 4 raised posts (I think they represent taller antennas or something) on the starboard side of the deck that I had to cut little indents to make the decal fit and I see that I was a little too deep on my cuts for those.
Anyway, this should answer the question of whether or not you can use a FDD decal on a Shapeways/Tiny Thingamajigs Essex carrier...I probably wouldn't recommend buying an Essex from Shapeways for this, but if you have one sitting around because you haven't worked up the courage to paint it like me...at least you can work a decal to make it look good on top!
Only 4 more Essexes to paint and decal...one more without dazzle and the other 3 with...now, where's my courage?
As always, thanks for looking!
With another Shapeways/Tiny Thingamajigs Essex (so you can see all of the raised areas to be shaved):
With a WOTC Essex:
With a Ghukek/XPForge long-hull Essex:
