declas not staying

[boohoo]

i put some decals on a model about two weeks ago and they are coming off if you touch it alittle bit it hasnt came off yet luckily. is there away to keep them on before clearcoat goe`s on thanks for any help

[Art Anderson]

i put some decals on a model about two weeks ago and they are coming off if you touch it alittle bit it hasnt came off yet luckily. is there away to keep them on before clearcoat goe`s on thanks for any help

Not saying that any of these are your specific problem, but there are things that decals do not like, for adhesion:

1) Decals don't stick well to a surface painted in flat finish paints, as these have a rough, grainy surface. Decal film can't really conform to such a surface.

2) Decals don't stick well to even a glossy surface, unless it's clean, and free of finger oils, and especially if the paintjob has been waxed beforehand.

3) And this is perhaps the biggest error that modelers make, soaking the decal too long. The "glue" that decals use is common, ordinary gelatin, same stuff that postage stamps used to use. Water soaks through the decal paper (in reality, this is blotting paper, very porous). Wet the decal just long enough so that it will slide, NO LONGER, and then position the decal, on the paper, where it is going to be, as closely as you can, and gently SLIDE the paper out from underneath it (rather than peeling it off the paper first). This keeps the glue on the underside of the decal, and it can still be positioned a bit while wet. If you need to use a wetting agent for your surface, that's OK, and of course, the available setting agents (used to soften the decal film so that it can snuggle down over details and over compound curves) work as well. But, the key issue, and the one I suspect is causing your problem, is to not use so much water as to wash away that gelatin adhesive.

Art