Academy decals :(

im building a 1/72 academy p-47 for a friend,and i was just thinking of that nice sheet of decals that come with the kit.

looks like i will be going  aftermarket also.

jason.

I had one Academy kit that had no problems with the decals: The F-117 "Ghost of Bagdad", but considering that there were few if any panel lines, and surfaces were either flat or very flat, that wouldn't give a very fair comparison......

I agree with all of you. Academy decals are junk. I'm just finishing up an Academy F-15I. Even though the decals were printed by Cartograph, they are not worth the paper they are printed on!. I've never built any Academy kit that had acceptable decals. Now that I think about it, most Academy kits aren't worth what we pay for them either.

Dean

I just put the decals on the same kit, the F-86, and they were in fact atrocious. The yellow bands gave me fits as did the tail checkers. They refused to settle down and I was putting them on Alcad with a gloss finish. I was really quite annoyed considering the rest of the kit was really quite good. Had I known I would have gone AM. I'd continue to buy Academy but now that I know it wasn't just my sheet or this kit in particular I think I'll use the money I save buying Academy kits on aftermarket decals.

I feel your pain, I was in a foul mood after wrestling with a handful of decals for a 3 hours.

That's a good thing to know. Thanks for the heads up on the Academy decals. I have a Strike Eagle that I was going to get some aftermarket decals for and now I will for sure.

I completely sympathize with you Eric. I have the same model with the same decals. The wide yellow band has a mind of its own and refuse to stick to the aircraft. The dark blue nose decals are just as bad if not worse. I solved it by painting the yellow band and the blue nose. Academy decals sucks even after all these years!

Eric, I learned a long time ago that Academy kit = AM decals. It's a shame as they have some great kits.

As for deleting posts you've started, you have about a ten minute window of opportunity. Otherwise try getting hold of Aaron or Megan and see if they can get out their pruning shears.

Thanks for responding Phil and Aces!

After posting my dilema, I did a forum search on "Academy decals" and found A LOT of others who had the exact same problem I did.  I should have done the search first before I posted!

Anyway, I'm hoping the decals will lift off easily with tape.  Any day now I should be getting the aftermarket set I ordered off of Squadron.  I got the Academy kit because I really liked the markings on the plane ("Mike's Bird").  But the yellow I.D. bands were just the worst.  After maybe five applications of Solvaset, the decals just will not conform to the panel lines and it is screamingly obvious.

On a side note, is there any way to delete a post you've started?  I tried looking for a way but couldn't find one.  I know we could do it in the old format but not in this new format.  Or maybe I just missed it.

Thanks!

Eric

Hey Eric,

Generally speaking, Academy decals erm... "inhale strongly".

Despite some of them being nice and sharply printed, they're often thick, lack adhesion and are unresponsive to decal setting solutions.If Solvaset won't touch it, I suspect that there's not many other options which will.

It is the nature of their decals and a replacement set will just be more of the same.

Echolmberg: Sounds to me like you got some bad decals contact Academy for a new set I had the same probluem on a Hasagawa kit a while back they sent me a new set probluem solved.      ACESES5