Atlantic Fleet Squadrons F-14A Tomcat WIP #3

Don't you just hate it when you first think things are starting to go smoothly, then something goes and throws a spanner in the works!

Well, that is what's happened with the Tomcat. I started to paint the model without any hitches. Got the pre-shading done and did a nice job with the base colour building it up in several light coats. The photos do not really show the effect that good, but is was one of the best jobs I had done so far. So I was well chuffed and carried on with the gloss clear to prepare the model for decals. That is where is started to go wrong!

First I started with the stencils on the tail planes. Most of them went down without any trouble, then a few from the edge of the sheet started to break up. Luckily, these were on the underside surface so would not be seen. I initially put this down to the decals being on the edge hence being creased up a little. Work continued onto one of the main wings and passed without any cracking. 

So I decided to add the tailart decals to the fuselage. First I added one of the inner faces of the tails and as it was being moved off the paper, the decal started to break in a couple of places. Thinking this might have been down to some rough handling from moving the decal around, I progressed to the opposite tail. |Disaster! This one broke up into a multitude of pieces. Trying to salvage the decal, I tried my best to repair the damage and rescue the tailart. I had the correct colour red in my stock, so the option was to touch up the damage with that and weather the model heavily to cover it up.

So the two outer decals now had a couple of coats of Mircroscale's liquid decal film and the following day attempted the next one. Again, this broke up so another coat was added to the last decal, but this did not help. The decal still broke up.

So to avoid the Tomcat taking a flight out of the window, I have decided to put her aside for now and finish another unfinished project. What I am going to do is wait until the new year and by some aftermarket decals to replace these old damaged ones. To save the need for repainting her, I will get some in which the aircraft is the same base colour as this scheme. So for now, this project is temporarily on hold and the 1/48th scale Messerschmitt Bf 110 has been dug out for finishing.