This new decal sheet set from Hobby
Decal includes
dry transfer stencils and water-slide decals for the 1/32 F-4 J VX-4
Vandy 1 "Black Bunny" from Oct 1972.
Full sized 1/1 aircraft
have their stencils painted on using paint stencils. Regular
decals are ink printed on a clear carrier film....which is fine, but
they are not as accurate in look and application as dry transfers for
certain applications such as stencils. This set gives you the
perfect combination of decals to do this jet up to obtain maximum
realism.
Dry
transfers are reverse printed on a temporary clear film.
When you apply the stencils you lay the back of the stencils on
the painted surface of the model and then burnish (rub) them down
through the clear temporary carrier film. The dry transfer
sticks to the model and dis-engages from the clear carrier film.
The beauty of dry transfers is on models with bare metal finishes.
On bare metal finishes you do not have any clear carrier film as
you would have with regular decals and this also applies to
painted areas as well. The decals are
beautifully printed on 8 decal sheets. One complete set of
stencils is included on this decal sheet....WOW.....so many
stencils.....even stencils for the weapons pods are included!!!
The dry transfers
are very clearly printed and will replicate the actual stencils on
this 1/1 F-4 perfectly and the water slide decals will perfectly
replicate the larger painted markings on this jet.
This decal set includes 3
types of decals.
- Dry transfers were
printed by Hobbydecal.com
- National insignia and
red bands were printed by Cartograf and are applied as water slide
decals.
- Blue bands with stars
and black walkway lines are water slide decals, but were printed on
clear decal film, so you will need to trim each markings before
applying them.
The markings
for RAF F-4J (UK) ZE352 are not included.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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These dry transfer
stencils and water slide decals are very clearly printed and you will be
impressed. To apply the dry transfers you need a rounded
tool to rub the clear carrier film to burnish the dry transfer top
the painted surface of the model. To the right is the tool sent to
me by Hobby
Decal....my wife recognized this as a Crochet needle....a type
of knitting.
The 3 pages of
instructions are clear and include 4 views of this one aircraft
that shows stencil and marking placement. Plus a third cardboard
page which includes 9 steps of instructions. This page is cardboard to give protection to the
product and avoid bending during shipping. The Hobby
Decal website also has instructions on installing dry
transfers.
It's very
exciting to see all these stencils........there are so many and on this
"Black Bunny" Phantom.....the white stencils will show up
exceptionally well on this black jet.
One very special feature of
the instruction sheets is that they are actually a large 2 sided poster
which you can see below. This poster is 16" (40.6cm) wide and
22" (56cm) long. And this poster shows the placement of each and
every tiny stencil applied to this jet. The poster is folded to fit
in the decal package for shipping, but it is a very nice poster on thick
glossy paper. The poster tells the whole story of the 2 F-4's
featured on the poster and their sad end (the grey RAF jet is NOT included
on this decal sheet). Special thanks for helping
make this sheet possible goes to Mike Davey, Andy Blair and Mark Jones.
If you want maximum
realism.......then these dry transfers and decals will give you
amazing results. Hobby
Decal has a variety of dry transfers for a large variety of
aircraft from props to jets. If you bought this decal set
you'd have one fantastic Phantom with these markings by Hobby
Decal.
I
would like to thank Hobby
Decal for providing me with this
product sample.
Steve
Bamford
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