Help finding Decals

[Guest]

Quick question... hoping someone can help me. A good friend of mine will be shipping out in Jan. on the USS Bataan. It is a Wasp Class warship. It is an LHD. I have been able to find a kit that is a 1/700 of a Wasp Class. The only thing is that the decals included are for LHD 1 & LHD 2. The Bataan is LHD 5. Anyone have any links that might be able to help me or know of any way of customizing this ship in the fashion that I would like to do? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Tails

[Guest]

Howdy Bob,

Ok, I know you need decals, are we talking the decals on the Bow and landing deck? I am looking at a photo of the Bataan and it has a "5" on the landing deck at the bow, and I see deck striping, but no other markings on the ship. A decal of the number 5 is simple enough to make, the stripes could be painted.



I am sitting here looking thru the new SQUADRON catalog( www.squadron.com ) for decals for ships and can not find any. All I see are detail sets or photo etched parts.

Squadron does offer decals, and they do have a phone number ( in Texas) that you can call and maybe ask about decals for the ship. The number is (972) 242 3774 24 hrs a day 7 days a week.

If you have the testors decal paper for your computers printer, you can easily download the "naval font" online and make the deck number 5. If you dont have the font on your computer, you can look over these links to download it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...military+fonts

I hope this helps in some way, sorry I couldnt find you the decal set,

Have a good day,

Greg

[Guest]

Thanks

Greg,

Thank you very much. That gives me a huge head start. I also need a 5 for the tower, but if I am making one, two will be just as easy. A shop near me has the decal papers. And that link should be able to get me the font I need. Thanks again. Will let you know how I make out on this.

Bob

[Guest]

Howdy Bob,

The pleasure is all mine. The decal paper will run you about $9.00, you also need the "fixitive" to set the ink on the decal so as that the ink doesnt run or wash off when immersed in water.

Once you make a few decals, you will see that you will be wanting to make decals for everything. I even have a decal I made of a "varga girl" on my tool box at work, I use the images of varga girls sometimes for decals for models, I was even placing them on card model bombers like the B 17.

These ladies, or ones like them were used as nose art and usually had the name of the plane with the painting on American Bombers of WWII.







Above: Varga girl pictures from the WWII era. You can find alot more of them by doing a google search for "Varga Girl". Look at them, save a few images and make your own decals with them for you models.

Have a good day,

Greg

[Guest]

ref., decals, try stickers.signprint.co.uk they may be able to help. JohnHA

[Guest]

Again, this is another useful bit of information. Thanks alot John.

Greg,

I like what you have done. I just better watch, the decals may become a side hobby. Hehe.

Bob

[Guest]

Hi Bob,

Yes I can certainly recommend making your own decals, I am doing it quite a lot these days and it helps you to do a nice custom finish on a model where you want to do something different to that supplied in the kits.

Printing white decals is still a tricky subject, unless you have a printer that can actually print white, most of us have standard computer printers but you can still get impressive results with them and the right decal paper.

The Bonus is the internet where you can just about find any image you want for your decals.

A little tip, I usually save my decals into Microsoft paint as this will keep them at their original size...when you are ready to resize or print out your decal sheet I highlight and copy each one separately into Microsoft Word and resize as necessary (if you try to resize in paint it will start ruining the image and go distorted) resize in word and you have no problems at all. I usually build up a full sheet of decals in word to save wasting paper and give me a few spares should anything go wrong. Once you have built your sheet up, save it and you have it ready to reprint as often as you like.

As for a Military font do a google for Amarillo font (no not that place in the song !!!) it is the standard US Military font and can be found for free on the net.

Regards.......Mark.

[Guest]

Howdy all,

I just wanted to clear up something, the "Varga" type girls in my above post were taken straight from the internet. Its up to the individual to put any wording with them. I didnt create those drawings......bvut I certainly will use them.

Another place to get decals is to look up "nose art" in google, it will produce all sorts of images that can be used to customize your models like the ones below:



Each of the above can be used in the decal making process to customize your models.

Anyway, back to nose art, I just discovered some more that could be made into decals for model aircraft at http://www.b1b.wpafb.af.mil/pages/noseart.html See pic below:



Like I said, none of these are my creations, but I have used some off the internet before.

Have a good day,

Greg

[wonwinglo]

Mark,it is interesting that you say you use Word for re-sizing,after using several programmes I always seem to come back to using it for quick alterations to the size,it is certainly a very flexible programme for this type of work.

[Guest]

Thanks Barry,

Yes, I have found Word to be the best way to build up decal sheets with resizing and not losing any quality so that is the way I will stick to now, and for those of you out there without Microsoft Office..OpenOffice (Which is totally free) will do exactly the same and is Microsoft compatible too, you can even save your sheets as Microsoft Documents...I used OpenOffice for 4 years before I got the freebie Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 Beta 2 release....I have had no glitches so far with that.

The download link is www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx although they are now charging £1.50 per download, I do believe you can still order it on DVD for free from the same link.

When you click the link and the page comes up, click on get the beta.

If you want OpenOffice the link is www.openoffice.org but it does not have features like wordart etc just yet

Regards......Mark