Decal Tweezers
Leoma Cianchetti
I like the self clamping type. I have a couple from Kaydee that are intended for assembling springs into HO model railroad truck couplers. I use them almost exclusively for holding decals while wetting & placing on the model.
I'm a big proponent of quality tweezers, ones that are designed for production use. You want tweezers that will hold but not damage the decal. In many cases the tweezers must hold the decal itself not the backing paper, so you want a pair that can do it without tearing or otherwise damaging the decal.
The one holding the straight pin and the one to the right of it are Reverse Action tweezers...which means you must apply pressure to release the jaws. These prevent one from squeezing the decal too hard thus damaging the membrane.
I never apply the tweezers to the decal itself, only to the backing paper. For me, the biggest advantage of the self clamping/reverse action tweezers is that you can dunk the decal in the water while being held by the tweezers & then when the decal moves freely on the bacikng paper position it on the model.& slide it off with a brush. The self clamping feature makes it much less likely to accidentally release it at just the wrong time.
I recently built my first RC buggy. I had a few problems getting the decals on nice and straight. The appraoch that I used was (almost certainly wrong) just to peel them with my fingers and stick them on. This means getting finger prints all over the sticky bit and having to half pull them off when I realised that they were not straight and then to try again. In the end some started to not stick very well but I got there and the buggy looks OK - it was only a cheapish 2wd Rising fighter buggy anyway.
I'm already planning my next buggy, perhaps a DI. Just want to know how to get the decals on right. I've seen decal tweezers - any good? And I've read about leaving some of the backing on and sticking a bit at a time - that sounds tricky!
You simply need a drop (1 drop per 250ml water) of washing up liquid in a pump spray bottle any type will do really soak the back of the decal and the body part where you want it. Lay the soaking wet decal on the wet body manouver to your hearts content, then when its in the right place gently sqeeze the water out. Works everytime.
Small decals I just lift them off the sheet with the tip of a scalpel and place them. Bigger ones definately use warm water with a drop or two of washing up liquid, I don't bother with a spray, I just dip them fully into the water and then float them into place. If you rub the from the middle out you shouldn't get air bubbles. I use a hair drier to dry them and get them to stick to tricky curves.
Things I've learnt about Decals... 1. Wash your hands every 5 minutes, 2. Apply Decals in numbered order, 3. Only cut a little backing away at a time and only a tiny amount to start to ensure decal is in the right place and work along (Each Gold stripe on my Porsche 959 took 6 snips of removing backing) 4. Don't be afraid to put in some relief cuts/darts in the decals where decals wrap on tricky curves. 5. Use a Lint free cloth to wipe the area clean before laying decal. 6. Use sharp scissors for trimming decals and backing regularly removing decal edges/backing build up from blades. 7. Be careful of not letting edges touch down before you've smoothed out from the center or to be able to pull up again to put tension on a different direction to get decal following the best contour etc...
Pretty much how I do it too. If (say e.g) I have a 10cm decal, I will take 1-2cm of the backing off first, push the decal around with the exposed piece not touching the shell until I'm happy with where the decal sits, then push the sticky part down, and continue cutting 2 cm off and rubbing the air out until the decal is finished.
I peeled the entire decal off the backing paper (even the really long side decals that the BC has), dipped it completely into the soapy water mix and then put it on the body. The soap and water film allowed me to slide the decal around a bit (using gentle pressure) while finding the exact position and alignment I was looking for. Once I liked the position, using my fingers, I started pressing from the middle of the decal outward to remove the water and any bubbles. Actually bubbles very rarely happened for me, and they were usually very easy to push out with my thumb or fingers.
Soap & water is a must for larger body decals. Positioning is easy and bubbles will be a thing of the past. I simply keep the bottle of soap handy and touch my finger to the dried soap on the tip. Then I run my finger under water for a moment and apply the lightly soapy water to the back of the decal. Too much soap will make the decal difficult to stick down. The good thing is you can always rinse excess soap off the back of the decal and try again...
I sometimes simply bend a corner of the backing back and get the decal stuck at one corner. Now you can pull the backing slowly while rubbing the newly exposed adhesive down. This will prevent bubbles, but makes perfect positioning difficult. This is how I apply chassis protection fim since it's trimmed off once in place. I get no air bubbles with this method...
You see, this is why I love this forum. From a simple question you get to pick up so many tips and ideas and share in the experience of others, ace! I too have tried the soap and water trick with some modest success. However, I have found lately that the pre cut decals, on my Fiat 500 for example, seem to have the most evil adhesive ever that once it gets a hint of a solid surface then that's it! Chemically bonded for life! (or you utter some of the worst swear words known to man and rip it off, say 'stupid hobby' and go an make a brew). One then calms down and tries again! I may be imagining it but I am sure that the adhesive used by Tamiya on their decals does vary................
Warm soapy water, dip em in there and place on car. Perhaps drop some drops of water on the car first as well where you are applying the decal. Squeeze the water out gently with paper towel or lint free cloth, then use hair dryer and keep doing it til free of water. The heat from the hair dryer also helps the decal to stretch a bit where needed on tight placements, corners, etc, as well as warming and drying the glue for a near permanent placement.
This place is great for information like this! I have always used the cut a small portion of the backing off and get the sticker in place, and then cut a little more backing and so on method. However, I have had issues with longer stickers like on the hornet so I am intrigued by the water/soap method. I don't know about anyone else but I am a little bit hesitant to try it in fear of wrecking a sticker by using too much water or soap and removing the adhesive. So my question is how much soap to water are we talking about? And when you say "washing up liquid" (sorry in the US here) do you mean dish soap, like liquid dawn?
Don't worry, you cannot mess up the decal or wash off the adhesive. You will know you have too much soap if you cannot make the decal stick once in place. Usually it will slide when drying it with a paper towel. If that is the case, simply pull it up and run it under the faucet for a couple seconds. This will remove most of the soap and give you just enough to place the decal and still stick it down. You only need a tiny bit of soap w/ a lot of water to coat the back of the decal.
yeah liquid you use to wash up dishes any will do i used just a drop in bowl large enough for decals, i used this method on my re-re BC to then used the missus hair dryer (shush dont tell her) to get rid of any wrinkles and really seal stickers flat, I found it really hard to line up the white stripes though! in end i trimmed off where it didnt line through with a scapel so it looks like a straight stripe!
Short of being in a a hermetically sealed 'clean room' while applying the decals, the only real thing you can do is be very sure that the body surfaces are completely free of dirt, dust, or body oils. I usually find myself repeatedly wiping the body down with iso alcohol throughout the entire decaling process.
I'm not going to argue against that, because it IS annoying to put stickers on LEGO, especially if you just use your fingers. I got tired of doing that a long time ago, so while at a hobby store in New Jersey I bought these.
They're generically called "hobby tweezers" and they're meant for manipulating tiny bits of plastic with glue or paint all over them. You know, for when you're adding greebles to an actual Star Destroyer model. But they're also phenomenally great at helping apply stickers, especially the ones with clear backing, so you don't leave finger prints all under them.
Now hobby tweezers come in all shapes, but I specifically chose these because the pointy ends help place really tiny stickers, whereas the longer flat sides can help grip larger, longer stickers. You want to make sure not to reverse the two, otherwise the tiny stickers will get stuck on the long flat sides, and the pointy ends will puncture larger stickers.
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