How to fade decals?

When I faded some of the decals on my F-117A I just sprayed a very light mist of the base color (black in my case) over them. They faded quite well I thought. I would assume that to achieve this effect on a grey or any lighter colored aircraft the effect should be pretty much the same. Just use a very thin mist of your base color and a pretty low pressure to spray it. Go slowly and check the flow of your airbrush often. If you get a run or a spatter you'll have to strip the decal off, re-finish the undercoat and re-decal again.

Cheers, I'll look into that - i just ordered my first airbrush, so I'll have to practice lots first to get used to using it!

Greetings,

I just faded some decals on my 1/48 Tamiya Corsair. I read somewhere that one method is to rub the decal with an pencil eraser while it is still on the sheet then you cut and use your favorite application method. I tried this and it did give a good faded look to the decal. I did notice that the rubbing caused the decal to split while I was trying to apply it but it settled down real nice and you can't even tell that it tore. Maybe I rubbed too much. Anyway, this is just another technique I read here or on another forum.

Chuck

In addition to spraying a light mist of paint over the decal as uilleann said above, i also gently sand the decals with about 1200 or finer grit sandpaper...it breaks the decals down and thins them here and there adding to the faded/worn look the paint misting gives them

Apply a coat or two of future over the decal and then airbrush a colour over it to give faded appearance. This way if you are not satisfied with result just wipe off the spray and try again.

Jack