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It WORKED ! my daughter's UV nail lamp on yellowed decals


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I had an old sheet of Arrow Graphics Mustang decals that I really wanted to use bad.     But it had yellowed since the 90's

 

I remembered this nail  lamp that sits around the bathroom doing nothing, so I absconded with it downstairs to the hobby room and 24 hrs under the lamp took away 99% of the yellowing.

 

It is currently in use correcting  my IPMS Canda Navy sheet in anticipation of the Airfix Sea Fury showing up on my doorstep imminently.

 

Cheers, Tony

Edited by Snowbird3a
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2 hours ago, RichardL said:

Great idea.  Note that you can also fix yellowed decals by taping them to a window that gets hit by direct sun light.

Yes, that's the traditional  well known method.   However, I'm happy that this is a method I can use during the long cold cloudy days of the West Coast winter.

 

And how long does it take  when the decals are taped to a window???

 

Model On !!!

 

Tony

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9 minutes ago, lesthegringo said:

Clearly this old fart  doesn't understand why women need a lamp for their nails! Having said that, my wife doesn't understand why I need fifteen different types of pliers and cutters when she thinks they all look the same

some nail polishes are cured with UV light ????

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Tony, a little while back, I was looking for CAF/RCAF fonts to update a Snowbird decal sheet with the "RCAF"/ "ARC" on the underside and came across this page:

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20020210183915/members.aol.com/p5219/fonts.htm

 

If you have a decent enough printer, and a clear sheet of decal paper you can run off whatever number/letter combination you want. Coat with a layer of Microscale Liquid Decal Film, and you're in business. Easy to do, I'm no computer geek and I downloaded and had a sheet printed in no time.

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Just a heads up regarding Arrow Graphics decals. I have used several sheets in the past and after several years the glue on the back of the decal yellows extremely bad after being applied to the model especially on models finished in white or lighter shades resulting in dark yellow/brown areas behind the carrier film where the decals are placed. After seeing what had happened to my older models I tested another set of decals on another model by soaking the decal until it can be lifted off the backing and then flipping the decal over so its glue side up in a dish of clean water. I then gently brushed off all the glue off the back of the decal and then apply it to the model using Future as the adhesive. So far after a couple years the decals haven't yellowed at all using this method so you may want to take this into account. Hopefully this helps.

 

Mark

Edited by cf18hornet
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On 2/10/2018 at 7:32 AM, Snowbird3a said:

no it's the acid in the paper staining the clear carrier film,  sunlight (UV) bleaches away the yellowing.

 

I always thought it was humidity or moisture that yellowed decals. Coming from Asia, I have this problem A LOT with decal sheets ( especially Hasegawa ones). So far the only ones that have withstood moisture and have not yellowed are Cartograf ones. 

 

But I'll give the UV nail light thingy a try.

 

A query:  Will exposing the sheet for 24hrs under the UV Nail Light risk making the decals themselves fade? Eg, will a bright red decal become faded red/pink, etc?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

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