Decaling such a slow process?

It's not just you. I also tend to be meticulous when laying down decals. Its my last step in completing a model and after all the hours of assembly in an attempt to build it up as near perfect as I can get, I don't want to screw it all up by misaligning decals. Plus, as I get older, like who doesn't, and my eyesight diminishes, I find it takes longer and longer.

No, your not the only one. I love that the decals start to bring the model to  life. But i also find it tedious, especially when you have lots of smaller decals. I do mine in small stages. I use a small bowl of hot water, once this has gone to cold to do any more, i take a break and get back later. depending on how easy the decals go on, and how long it takes me to get each one right, this usually mean i get from 2 to 5 or 6 in any one go.

It takes a long time for me for models with a large number of decals because I don't like to do too many at one sitting. I am afraid when putting a decal on, I may disturb one still setting.  So I only do four or five at a time.  So my sessions are not long for each session, but the  total time spent on decals may be several hours.

I often opt not to put on all of the decals especially the smallest ones. These markings are hard enough to see standing six feet away from the real aircraft, so in scale effect they are too small to read and mostly invisible anyway.

Bish

No, your not the only one. I love that the decals start to bring the model to  life. But i also find it tedious, especially when you have lots of smaller decals. I do mine in small stages. I use a small bowl of hot water, once this has gone to cold to do any more, i take a break and get back later. depending on how easy the decals go on, and how long it takes me to get each one right, this usually mean i get from 2 to 5 or 6 in any one go.

At least I know I'm not the only one! Tonight's session ended up with a total of 4 decals, though one was the shark mouth on the nose of the Phantom. I required a bit of finesse as I had to coax it over the various curves and trim it to fit as it is a set taken from another manufactures kit.

As to those data decals... I may be crazy, but this kit is a Hasegawa kit, and the decals will be a mix of some of the original set, markings from an Italeri set, and a few data decals from an aftermarket Superscale set I picked years ago. The original Hasegawa included very few of the data decals, but plenty were were offered on the Italeri set. The AM set fills in a few areas to round it out! This may take me a while...

That would drive me bat$#!T insane if it took me that long. I'll get a clearcoat and decals in one sitting. I'll usually do the bigger ones first. Cut one from the sheet, put in water, cut another, take the one out of the water, trim the "fat" off the second, dip it, place the first one, cut another...........I like to keep it where there is one ready to be placed, one after another. Just a few short breaks, here and there.

YES!! Finally, something that I'm an over-achiever with!!

I doubt I'm as fast as fermis, but that hour generally gets most things done. If I have a decal over a decal situation, I'll sometimes leave part 2 until the next night. I am in agreement with Hawkeye though. Most of my aircraft are 1/72, some 1/48 - a lot of the time I don't bother with the tiny little stencils. They're hardly visible to start with, so I'd just be taking a risk of having them silver.

I do everything slow when it comes to models

tedious but necessary as all building phases

Actually i have a revell mig 31 in 1/72 with an half a4 decals sheet full of stencils  I predict  nightmares with subtitles in cyrillic after placed all

HawkeyeHobbies

I often opt not to put on all of the decals especially the smallest ones. These markings are hard enough to see standing six feet away from the real aircraft, so in scale effect they are too small to read and mostly invisible anyway.