Here's the original kit decals, probably from the mid 1970s.
They aren't creased or yellowed.
I've had the same bottle of MicroScale Liquid Decal Film for years, it seems to last a long time. This comes in handy when you have older, questionable decals.
It seems to brush on thick but dries very thin on the decal face.
A few of the decals are set down first, then more cardstock rectangles and a dowel are glued down with contact cement.
Down the inside centerline of the propulsion unit tubes. That forward rectangle will get a cardstock piece glued over it. A dowel is glued on over that.
I built that one back in the 70's I believe. I forgot how hard it was to build. Only flew it once.
ReplyDeleteGlad you got your decals to behave. My inner-nacelle and nacelle wrap decals and one Primary hull decal behaved and the enough of the others gave up the ghost, so I got some after-market ones from JTGraphics through CultTVman.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when the Estes decals were the gold standard for the plastic modelers.
One of the reasons why some plastic modelers sought after the Estes decals for the USS Enterprise was that the registry and starship name were in the correct typeface (the ones in the AMT plastic models had the wrong typeface). With the Estes model being the same size, made replacing some of the AMT decals with the Estes decals was sort of a no-brainier.
DeleteThe ATM kit that has been since reissued by Round 2 Hobby have the correction (no need to scavange the ones from the Estes model).
As an upside to the Estes kit being the same size as the AMT kit, the aftermarket decals for the ATM plastic model should be mostly usable for the Estes model. The only ones you might not be able to directly replace would be the Estes-specific decals (such as the rings behind the forward endcaps on the nacelles, and the nacelle inboard detail).
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