Decals and Insignia

[John Brown]

Awesome job, on these! :-)

[Andy6049]

Those look great!  I would like to confirm that you used the 2mm decals on the wings?

[DMcLaren]

Thank you!  Those are the plain ones for the Battle of Britain Spits with no fin flash.  The wing roundels are labeled “For Upper Wing” on the decal sheet, and after searching around to find a metric measuring stick, yes, the upper wing roundels are 2mm.  Fuselage roundels measure 1.5mm, and although they’re a pain to work with, the effort is worth it.  Without measuring, it looks like the lower wing roundels are about 1.75mm.  Some of those will most likely be fuselage roundels on the bombers.  I’ll have a lot left over after doing 22 fighters (20 done, 2 left to finish, some wing upper and lower roundels are I-94, varies with the era of the Spits, from '38 to '45, so no two are alike) 10 tacticals (in various forms, no 2 alike), and 10 (maybe more) bombers.  We plan on using the leftovers for tanks, mech inf, trucks, and artillery.  Some of the larger roundels from the I-94 sheets went on the carrier decks.  The fin flashes on the I-94 sheets have to be cut down, but that’s another thing worth the effort, because they look great.  For example, here’s a Spitfire based on an aircraft flown by Pilot Officer Robert Wendell “Buck” McNair D.F.C. (Royal Canadian Air Force) No.249 Squadron (Gold Coast) based in Malta, March 1942.  Fuselage decal is Dom, wing upper and lower (not visible) and cut-down fin flash are I-94.  The camera flash does something funny to the wing decals- those dark circles are not visible to the naked eye:

[Andy6049]

You said that the decals are for the Battle of Britain Spits?  Are you referring to these:

http://domsdecals.com/epages/81fc44d0-907b-42a4-9f72-8d3238c7e6b2.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/81fc44d0-907b-42a4-9f72-8d3238c7e6b2/Products/600-GB-02

Or did you use these?

http://domsdecals.com/epages/81fc44d0-907b-42a4-9f72-8d3238c7e6b2.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/81fc44d0-907b-42a4-9f72-8d3238c7e6b2/Products/600-GB-06

The reason I ask is because I was about to purchase Dom’s 1/300 size for the wings and the 1/600 for the fueselage based off of scale calculations.  But the 1/600 on those first Spits looks pretty good.  Have you decaled any other nations yet?

[DMcLaren]

The first listing- 600-GB-02.  Pico has a picture of the decal sheet here:
https://www.picoarmor.com/product-category/decals/

I didn’t buy the second listing because I couldn’t tell from the picture if that’s what I wanted or not.  I’d recommend going with the 1/600’s for the proper scale for A&A planes.

I’ve done all of Japan’s air power- or had, until I bought some Japanese paratroop transports and jets from HBG, and a significant portion of the US air power, German, and Italian air power.  All those were done with I-94 decals, but more are planned with some Dom decals.  My buddy is working on the navies, and has finished the UK rather quickly, then bogged down making customized carriers for Japan out of the A&A Akagi and Shinano carriers.  He’s modded Akagi’s to be a Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu, and chopped a few down to make a Zuiho and a Shoho.  He’s also chopped a few Shinanos to make a Ryujo and an Amagi.  He’s done some amazing stuff I’ll have to share here.

[Andy6049]

Ok.  I too plan on using a mix of Dom’s and I-94.  My main concern is the 1/600 looking too small for the wings, but your Spits look right on.

Those custom carriers will be cool.  How different will the Kaga and Ryujo look from HBG’s sculpts?

[DMcLaren]

Kind of funny, or sad, but we didn’t even look for a Kaga or Ryujo on HBG’s site until after they were both done.  Their Ryujo is a nice little thing for one plane, but my buddy’s is just a little bigger (also for one plane).  I would have liked to have gotten an HBG Kaga because the detail in their pieces is so nice, but next to his Akagi, you can’t even tell they started out as the same piece.  Some time this week I’ll post some pictures.

[Johnson73]

something like this?

[Johnson73]

here’s another

[DMcLaren]

Are those the HBG versions?  I bought a set of HBG Ryujos but they haven’t been painted yet.  So… my buddy is a professional painter- master at faux finishes, worked on museum displays, zoos, auto show displays (that’s not really exotic wood or marble- he’s painted it to look that way), stuff like that.  I gave him a print of a schematic of one of the carriers, I forget which by now since I’ve printed so many, and he chopped off the tower on an OOB Akagi and moved it to the other side of the carrier, filed some stuff off and built other stuff on with putty, and hand painted the deck and both sides to exactly match the schematic.  I’ll have to start a separate post so we don’t hijack this one with them.

[Johnson73]

yes, those are HBGs version.