Global Scale Modeller

This past weekend I attended my local IPMS club meeting for the first time. Great group of guys and lots of knowledge to be absorbed. During the "Show-and-Tell" portion of the meeting, one of the guys was discussing a method for eliminating silvering of decals. He stated that he uses Tamiya Extra Thin to get rid of the silvering portions. He did note that you have to be extremely careful doing so as it could cause your decal to melt. Has anyone ever heard of this technique before? Thanks in advance.

Yes... heard of it and every cells in my Body tells me to stay away from such techniques.... Silvering would not happen or be greatly diminished if using a good gloss coat over mate paints and proper setting solutions...

The risk of damaging.... decals and paint-works are so great ! that I would bet money some will come back to support me in saying...
Stay away from that!

Glue is for gluing models... (in my books)

Very interesting, will have to research that.
Always a new way to do something, have not heard of that one before
I would test it on a plastic trial piece and see how it goes for you in your hands before risking it on your model
That is a pretty standard response. Will Patterson on YouTube is a crazy man who tests everything

I have done some clear acrylic under a silvered area and let it flow under with capillary action..it was Future
I have also thinned some clear canopy glue (PVA in the UK) and fed it under a decal whose edge would not sit down in place....a bit drastic, but it did work.
Tight decal trimming and a really good clear layer solves the silvering....most times, but you know that already.
Always good to have a few methods in the holster for outside the "normal" situations

schweinhund227 wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2017 4:29 pm Yes... heard of it and every cells in my Body tells me to stay away from such techniques.... Silvering would not happen or be greatly diminished if using a good gloss coat over mate paints and proper setting solutions...

The risk of damaging.... decals and paint-works are so great ! that I would bet money some will come back to support me in saying...
Stay away from that!

Glue is for gluing models... (in my books)

I'll take that bet my friend. I wouldn't let TET within a country mile of any paint work. I've seen what the merest touch of TET on a painted surface can do.

Stokesy44 wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2017 6:13 pm

schweinhund227 wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2017 4:29 pm Yes... heard of it and every cells in my Body tells me to stay away from such techniques.... Silvering would not happen or be greatly diminished if using a good gloss coat over mate paints and proper setting solutions...

The risk of damaging.... decals and paint-works are so great ! that I would bet money some will come back to support me in saying...
Stay away from that!

Glue is for gluing models... (in my books)

I'll take that bet my friend. I wouldn't let TET within a country mile of any paint work. I've seen what the merest touch of TET on a painted surface can do.

Using TET on paint and decals would be preferable to using a blowtorch, but not by much.

I use Tamiya x20a on stubborn decals which works really well but you have to be careful of your paint job

ForbesHutton wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2017 6:56 pm
Using TET on paint and decals would be preferable to using a blowtorch, but not by much.

Too right mate. I'd rather use TET for this than touch a decal with it!



Disclaimer - I am not encouraging solvent abuse in any way.

Thanks for all the replies to this. Just to be clear, this isnt something that I would personally do and I too found it very, very risky. I have seen what a little TET used on prepainted parts can do, God forbid I'd want to risk it on a painted model or decals. I thought it was crazy talk to be honest, that is the main reason I asked the question. As great as most of the guys in the club are, there are a couple in there that make you say "WTF are you talking about?"

i have actually used tet on decals before. cant remember what decal it was, but it wasn't tamiya, they're not that bad.

the couple of times ive used it were on decals that were super thick, and only after everything else had failed.

no adverse effects on the paintwork because (obviously) the thickness of the decal protected the paint underneath.

that said, i wouldn't recommend it for anything but the thickest decals, and even then, at your own risk!