Wrinkled decal help

Looks like you have some very tiny air pockets under those wrinkes. This happened to me before. Use a very very sharp exacto blade, and gently score the across the wrinkes and along the panel line. Then, try the micro-sol treatment. I had to do this 3-4 times until it got better. The wrinkles did not go 100% away, but after a flat coat, you couldnt tell unless you were looking for it.

Let us know how you make out!

Normally when this happens to me, I smooth the wrinkles out with a wet finger tip while the decal solvent is drying, gently rubbing, tugging and pulling to keep the decals smooth until completely dry.

If these are already dry , it might be too late, unless the solvent softens them up enough to tug and pull smooth.

If it is too late, you might try lightly scribing the color borders with an X-Acto knife tip, removing the decals and masking and painting the stripes on.

At least that is what I would do.

  Tom T

Thanks for the responses.  I did the tapping with a blade point to no avail.  Vinman.... I am going to try scoring each wrinkle with a new blade following a close as i can.

 

Tom, I hope it doesn't come to that.

Oh man, I hate when that happens. Actually, it has a couple of times and I'm sorry to say, I found it to be un-correctable. I think I sanded the wrinkles out, and touched it up with paint. Good luck Mark.

Jerry

I've had that happen to be a couple times too, I just gave up after numerous applications of micro sol to no avail.  I ended up using a buffing stick to gently "sand" down the little wrinkle.  Be careful though!  too much buffing and you'll take the decal off (voice of experience here!)

Marc, while I'm sure this isn't the answer you want to hear, I'll give it anyway. Next time I'd just paint the stripes on. There's spots that will be a hassel ( like those belly details on your P-47) but overall it's worth it. You can do so much more with paint. I'd do the stripes first, then mask em off and weather them, then seal with future. Once you do that, paint the rest of the exterior. It's simple!

I've had this problem too. I just would let the decal  fully dry and solvaset, fully dry again and solvaset etc. until the wrinkles laid down. May take 3 or 4 times but it did work. Right after you apply the solvaset, GENTLY apply pressure to the wrinkles with a Q tip to flatten.

I am unfortunately in exactly the same predicament as of about a half-hour ago. Curiously, the surface is 100% flat, and the problem only happened after the application of Microsol. (After two failures, I wisened up and tried one without it, it's sitting happily flat on the side of the vehicle). Never had an issue with Microsol before like that, though in this case the kit is 8 years old (Dragon SA-9)

As I'm not sure that simple repeated sol applications will help me out on this one, I think I'll see what happens if I let the decal dry overnight, then tomorrow use lots of Set in the hope of loosening the decal to the extent that I can smooth it out.

There is hope, however. You should be able to see the crinkles on the cheatlines of this 737. Repeated Microset Microsol applications combined with the odd application of a #11 X-acto fixed everything flush on that one.

NTM

This is odd. The decals seem to have rather settled down a lot overnight. Still the odd wrinkle, but a hell of a lot better than when I went to bed. More applications of Sol to follow.

NTM