Tamiya Decals suck?

[Stuart]

Was just applying a second coat of Mircoset... sol... the red one... to the decals on my Tamiya Sherman when the whole lot lifted and shattered...

Is this my first instance of Tamiya's sucky decals I keep hearing about, or was I just unlucky? I'd already put them down with Micro sol and set, over gloss, and was adding a second coat to help bed them down further.

They did take bloody ages to come off the backing paper and silvered quite badly.

Any thoughts?

I now have a Tamiya Sherman with no decals.... I guess I do still have the Pacific markings. Don't trust them not to come off as well.

[Stikpusher]

Usually the main complaint about Tamiya decals is their thickness, not fragility… I have found them to be pretty hardy myself, so hearing that they shattered, even with the assistance of Micro Sol (the red one). IIRC, Micro Set has the blue label.
I would suggest contacting Tamiya customer service in Europe for some replacement decals if you don’t want to use the PTO markings… btw Tamiya boned those up, since the wolf heads both face the same direction and not at each other for forward facing on the tank as in real life… or you could go with typical late war ETO markings and have most of them covered up…

[BlackSheep214]

Wow… that’s tough…and unusual to hear how your Tamiya decals reacted. I’ve always known Tamiya decals were known for being thick, never fragile. I use both Sol and Set using Micro set first, lay down the decal then apply Micro sol for last.

Once in a while, I’ll use Testors Decal setting solution under certain situations.

[tempestjohnny]

I've never had an issue with Tamiya decals being fragile. Mostly because of the thickness they need coercion to melt into panel lines

[cbaltrin]

I have never had success with micro-sol on Tamiya Decals. They go down beautifully with Tamiya or Gunze Decal solvents however.

[Stuart]

oh yeah that's right, it's the THICKNESS people complain about!

Strangely enough, that was about the only thing not wrong with this sheet. But I do think I might just have had a duff one. They took AGES to come of the backing paper, even using hot water.

I do have a bottle of Tamiya decal adhesive I could try if I use anymore of the kit sheet. But as John said, they didn't really work with set/sol.

Thanks guys!

Usually the main complaint about Tamiya decals is their thickness, not fragility… I have found them to be pretty hardy myself, so hearing that they shattered, even with the assistance of Micro Sol (the red one). IIRC, Micro Set has the blue label.
I would suggest contacting Tamiya customer service in Europe for some replacement decals if you don’t want to use the PTO markings… btw Tamiya boned those up, since the wolf heads both face the same direction and not at each other for forward facing on the tank as in real life… or you could go with typical late war ETO markings and have most of them covered up…

Interesting note on the PTO markings Carlos, that was a bit of a woops!

I've ordered a AM sheet with some new Stars, and I'll try the other ETO option when they arrive. I might try a different decal solution.

[Medicman71]

Man that sounds more like Academy decals.

[Stuart]

Man that sounds more like Academy decals.

Interesting. I've not had the pleasure of Academy decals yet but that's good to know,

[Medicman71]

In their defense, they have been using Cartograph for their decals lately. The earlier ones, throw them away.

[Duke Maddog]

I've always found Academy decals to be thick. IN all my 1/72 scale Tamiya kits, the decals have all been too thin, sometimes even shattering on the decal sheet while soaking. I built a Tamiya F-84 that had the noise decal shatter into four parts, the tail into nine and the rest into numerous parts. It made a five minute decal job turn into an hour's work just piecing them all together on the model!