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Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Estes Low Boom SST #7289 Build, Part 15, Body Air Stream Decals

The layout of the decals on the decal sheet is confusing. Each long "airstream" wave decals are in two pieces.
GOTCHA - there are two top and two bottom curved lines. The top two-piece line is thicker than the bottom two-piece line.
Match up the end thickness to find which piece goes with which piece.

TIP: Do some dry fits before soaking the decals!
Notice where the front of the top piece falls over the front edge of the wing.


The front of the decal goes down, the windows have to fit on top.


These decals are thin and will stretch when slid off the backing paper.

Here I'm checking the curve of the first applied maroon decal with the original curve of the backing paper. You can see how the curve was stretched and straightened a bit when slid into position.


TIP: Cut the tapered ends a little wide, not right against the printed image. If it is too narrow it could stretch even more!

Here's how my top front and rear "air stream" decals were set down.

You can see where the decals overlap in the middle.
The bottom decals still have to be applied.

6 comments:

  1. Wow those are some challenging decals. Look great though.

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    1. Hi Neil,
      The layout of the decals on the sheet could be confusing. As I wrote, these decals are thin! While thin decal clear borders tend to disappear after they dry (can be a plus). These long ones stretch and the desired shape is easily distorted.

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  2. Long thin decals are always "fun" to work with...

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  3. A typical cheatline on airliner model could already be a challenge -- but at least they're usually straight and often there are "landmarks" such as window openings and door outlines that could aid in the positioning and alignment. Here we've got wavy stripes, that are split into sections and not much in terms of previously positioned "landmarks" on the surface that could help with the positioning.

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  4. As for "real-world" airline livery... Pan American is the first to pop into my mind as a choice. If I'm not mistaken the Boeing 747 made its debut with Pan Am. I recall having a plastic model kit of the Boeing SST that was in Pan Am markings. And of course in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the spaceplane carrying Dr Heywood Floyd to the space station was in Pan Am markings. Too bad however that the airline went bust by 1991. Was definitely an unexpected turn of events when a railroad company bought the rights to the name, colors and logo of Pan American in 1998.

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  5. Another side note -- the use of the Interceptor nose cone on this model sort of reminds me of the proposals for converting a Convair B-58 "Hustler" or the North American XB-70 "Valkyrie" into airliners for the purpose of "beating" the Europeans in flying the first SST.
    I do recall reading somewhere that a DC-8 became the first airliner to go supersonic (albeit briefly) in a test flight in 1961 (around Mach 1.01 -- in a dive).

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