ICM Dornier 215B-4

[efrick]

Evening All,

 

I was unsure where to place this post. I initially thought about placing it under the "Hints and Tips section", with the topic title of "DON'T USE THE KIT DECALS" but decided on a somewhat less dramatic course and instead will post here since it is, despite all, still a work in progress.

 

I have been building (and at times struggling with) the ICM DO-215B-4. The kit has. for the most part, sucked the life out of me. I had read a few reviews online, and gathered that although it was certainly not a "shake and bake" kit it was nothing that would be beyond my skills. In a nutshell, the fit problems center around the engine nacelles and wing root-fuselage join. After a long slog of sprue "spreaders" glued at strategic points inside the wings near the nacelles, and filler along the wing-fuselage join (particularly directly behind the cockpit) I felt that the worst was behind me. 

 

I then moved onto painting, which being a splinter camo proved to be time consuming due to masking, but otherwise problem free. Satisfied with the paint job, I laid down a nice, hard, smooth coat of Future and moved on to the decals. 

 

Although I had also read that the kit decals were not the best, I was completely unprepared for what transpired when I cut the first decal from the sheet, dipped it in warm water, and attempted to place it on the upper wing.

 

The decal (an upper-wing cross) slid nicely off the backing paper and onto the surface of the wing. Upon my fist attempt to maneuver it into it's proper position, it began to tear; I also noticed small bits and fragments of the carrier film floating freely about in the small puddle of "Micro Set" that I had laid down in a small puddle prior to placement.

 

After much struggling, sweating, cursing, and manipulation with a tiny detail brush, I managed to get the sections of torn decal into some semblance of a "Balkenkreuz". At that point, it seemed my options were to sand the decal off, repaint, and order some after-market decals. However, after a bit of online searching hopes for that option faded; the only decals that I could find available were for a Hungarian Machine, and another for a Dutch machine. I then remembered a set of "Third Group Decals" that I had ordered for use on a Monogram He-111 that I ordered long ago but (thankfully) never used. A quick search through my decal drawer and I had them in hand. They matched the kit decals perfectly in size, but that is where the similarity ended. Despite having a copyright date of 1995, the first decal I used settled down beautifully with just a bit of "Micro-Set"; a single dab of "Micro-Sol" finished the job.

 

SO....the whole point of all this bloviating is to advise you that you use the kit decals at your own peril. This is going to be a VERY generic looking machine when finished, with just the wing and fuselage crosses in place. The call letters are printed on lengthy bits of clear carrier, and I am betting that they will silver like the devil (assuming I can get them placed to begin with before they split or shatter).

 

Here is bit of photographic evidence of what I am talking about. This is the kit decal. Note the bit of flotsam that has now permanently embedded itself in the gloss coat immediately to the left of the wing cross. Also note the fracture line to right of center of the cross. That weird "milkiness" has at least faded from around the edges.  Oh, and they really aren't in very good register, either.

 

 

 

This is the "Third Group Decals" cross, settled in and snuggling down nicely in a bath of "Micro-Sol", as nature intended:

 

 

Finally, so as to qualify for an actual "work in progress" post (as opposed to a rant post), here is a pic of my attempt at Summer 1940 Luftwaffe splinter camo:

 

[Artful69]

This is making me all warm and fuzzy for 1/32 Do.17z    (swoon) ...

sorry to hear about your decal woes ... staying with, going AM or masking?

 

Rog

[Wingco57]

That milky "troep" reminds me of some of the good old Matchbox' decal sheets, which made things very messy. But that was only incidentally.

Cees

[efrick]

This is making me all warm and fuzzy for 1/32 Do.17z    (swoon) ...

sorry to hear about your decal woes ... staying with, going AM or masking?

 

Rog

Hi Rog,

 

I keep waiting for the "big reveal" myself from Revell that they'll be doing the 17Z in 1/32.

 

I continued using the old "Third Group" decals for the enormous under-wing crosses (I can't imagine how the kit decals would have reacted to any attempts to maneuver them in place, given their size). After a day to compose myself, I decided to go ahead and give the call letters and stencils from the kit a try...here's the method I ended up trying: (I can't take credit for coming up with this, I remember reading it somewhere online years ago)

 

I mixed up a dilute solution of warm water and Future, then slathered a generous puddle of it on the fuselage, I then floated the call letters off the backing and into the puddle, carefully positioning the call letters, then pressing them gently into place with a paper towel. After wiping away the excess, and cleaning the surrounding area with a bit of warm water, I slathered the call letters in "Micro-Sol". That did the trick...they look OK, although they did shatter a bit on one side along the panel lines; I think I can fix that with a bit of careful masking and airbrushing). One thing at least...they didn't silver.

 

As for the stencil decals, I placed a couple of them last night as well; I suppose because of their small size they are a bit easier to work with and went down pretty well.

 

I'll post a couple of more pics of my results later tonight.

 

Regards,

 

Ed

[RalphSarc]

Looks like a great build!

I had the decals on my recent Hurricane build do some weird things including silvering!!

I had just bought the New Tamiya Decal Set so with lots of coats of that and a million needle punctures they finally behaved.

I'm going to try masking and spraying the insignias on my 1/48 Tamiya Lancaster I'm currently building!

[efrick]

Looks like a great build!

I had the decals on my recent Hurricane build do some weird things including silvering!!

I had just bought the New Tamiya Decal Set so with lots of coats of that and a million needle punctures they finally behaved.

I'm going to try masking and spraying the insignias on my 1/48 Tamiya Lancaster I'm currently building!

Thanks Ralph! I am suddenly enamored of the idea of sprayed markings myself. I look forward to seeing how your Lanc turns out!

[RalphSarc]

I chicken out on the Lancaster and used the decals which after install I sanded with a very fine sanding sponge to level them. I really like that effect!

I'm going to practice painting decals on some plastic card so I can work through all the mistakes without using a kit!

[kahunaminor]

Nice build,

 

I like the paintwork, what paint did you use? Your decal woes seem to echo my current predicament with the Techmod set I am using on the Bf 110C. I wonder if they share a lineage?

 

Regards,

[efrick]

Nice build,

 

I like the paintwork, what paint did you use? Your decal woes seem to echo my current predicament with the Techmod set I am using on the Bf 110C. I wonder if they share a lineage?

 

Regards,

Hi Kahuna!

 

Thanks! The RLM 70 and 71 (Black Green XF-27 and Dark Green XF-61) are Tamiya. I laid down each of these as a base coat, then I added a bit of XF-60 Dark Yellow to each and randomly lightened them.   The "RLM 65" underside is a base coat of Tamiya XF-23 Light Blue which was then over-sprayed with random squiggles of Gunze Aqueous RLM 65. The red "Nicht Betreten" (?) lines along the upper fuselage wing root were masked off and painted with Tamiya X-7 Red (the decals for these shattered immediately upon placement in water).

 

The RLM-02 for the cockpit and wheel wells was Lifecolor Acrylic. This was my first experience with LifeColor and I was very pleased!

 

Like your Techmod decals, the lineage of the ICM kit decals was highly suspect!

Regards,

Ed

[MARU 5137]

Just seen this...

 

Fantastic.

[Old Dog]

I was so happy when this kit was released, as it ended my efforts to piece one together from parts of other kits, that I tended to overlook some of the fit issues. All in all this kit goes together much easier than many of ICM's earlier releases. And yes I totally agree that the decals suck but of late it has seemed to be much more common except when they are done by Cartograph or Microscale and have gotten a lot more interested in painting them on myself.

[Martinnfb]

Seems like the PB killed the pictures long ago.