Micro set & sol

[Zulu]

I used micro set & micro sol to apply the decals on my Romulan Bird of Prey. The model had 3 coats of glass smooth Pledge Future. The decals went on perfectly flat but after drying the decals remained wrinkled.
Had to scrape of decals and completly repaint
Is this micro set & sol crap?
Should I be using something else?

 

[Biskup]

They are probably the best thing on the market.
Use Set before you apply decal (so you apply decals on set) and you use sol to "glue" them on to the model.
After using sol they first wrinkle as they soften then thy dry out and the wrinkles should disappear. You have to monitor the entire process and if the wrinkles don't disappear you need to apply another thin layer of Sol and so on until they set properly.
Unfortunately sometimes you need to deal with so "manure" type of decals that nothing will help and you just need to make the best of it.
Cheers
Lukasz

 

[sunsanvil]

They are probably the best thing on the market.

Ditto.

As Lukasz said, most of the time what will happen when you apply Sol is the decal will wrinkle, then you panic, scream "poop!" and if at this point you so much as touch them you will bring about the end of the earth... BUT if you leave it alone, as it dries the wrinkles magically disappear. Thats how its supposed to work, and indeed does...most of the time.

What I've discovered over the past half dozen models or so is that the decals themselves have the greatest influence on the results you get....and sadly are the one thing you cannot control or change. The decals for a Hasegawa FW190 I built a while back wrinkled....and did not flatten out. I would repeatedly hit them with Sol at several hour intervals and all that did was change the wrinkles (I had to VERY CAREFULLY flatten them but that's a whole story in itself). More recently the decals that came with the Bandai Core Fighter sucked the big one as no matter what I did, or which fluids I used, they all silvered, some really bad (ruined the project for me). Meanwhile most of Bandai's Gundam decals don't wrinkle at all, no matter how much Sol I hit them with, and have a hard time settling.

Bottom line is when things go really wrong, its almost always the decals fault, not Set/Sol or whatever else you are using.

 

[KA-22]

Use this product from japan work good on decal film of all maker.
Better product than m.sol I think!

Best of luck on all project you do !

Karl.

 

[Zulu]

Thanks for the advice.
The proceedure was done as suggested; applied set, positioned and placed decal, apllied sol on top.
Decal was wrinkled still after 1 hour, applied more sol, repeat, repeat and repeat...still poop.
Maybe the decals in the the Round 2 BOP are not so great.
I ordered another set from J-T Graphics, hopefully his decals are of better quality.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

When the wrinkles don't go away, I very gently score the wrinkle with a new sharp blade, then hit it with the Micro Sol. This way the Sol actually gets under the decal to work, rather than just on top. For stubborn air bubbles, you can use a pin and follow up with Sol.

 

[Zulu]

When the wrinkles don't go away, I very gently score the wrinkle with a new sharp blade, then hit it with the Micro Sol. This way the Sol actually gets under the decal to work, rather than just on top. For stubborn air bubbles, you can use a pin and follow up with Sol.

Good idea; I tried that but there were hundreds of bubbles, the entire decal wrinkled...and the BOP is a very big decal!

 

[Zulu]

I purchased a replacement decal set from JT Graphics and it went on smooth as butter!
It's a great decal set becase the main section of the bird is in one piece; as opposed to split down the middle in the Round2 kit which is murder to try and match.
The micro sol and set reacted very nicely to the JT decal but the R2 decal was impossible to even slide once on the model.
I suggest anyone building the TOS BOP scrap the decal set it comes with and buy from JT Graphics.