Reviews of scale model decal sets.

Review Author
Bill Kluge
Published on
April 28, 2011
Company
Airscale Model Aircraft Enhancements
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$8.70

I don’t know how many times I’ve scoured through page after page of my aircraft decal sheets looking one or more dial decals to use on a particular instrument panel. Now, Airscale has saved me a whole lot of looking. They have produced a multi-national series of instrument dial decals in 1/48, 1/32 and 1/24 scale. This set, for US Navy aircraft, has scores of different instrument dials printed in two sizes. According to the list on the instructions, there are over a dozen different instruments represented on this sheet. Unfortunately, they aren’t individually identified or separated on the decal sheet itself. On the other hand, for that information to be useful you’d have to either be a pilot, have a better than average knowledge of the instrument panel being modeled, or have a diagram of the specific panel available to you to know what instrument decal goes where.

Review Author
Rod Lees
Published on
April 28, 2011
Company
Linden Hill Imports
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$20.00

For the IPMS build involving various aftermarket parts for the Trumpeter Mig 23, I did not want to do the kit decal markings for the “M”. Therefore, I ordered the Linden Hill Warsaw Pact decal from Linden Hill imports. I told Guy at LHI I was doing the review and he threw in the second sheet (32012) for the ML, MLP, LMA, etc., as flown in Afghanistan and other places. Those will be used in a separate review later. Extreme thanks to Guy at LHI for providing us these items for review. We at IPMS USA appreciate the serious, undying support of distributors like you!

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
April 25, 2011
Company
Airscale Model Aircraft Enhancements
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$7.50

Ever since the days of Waldron Instrument Bezels I’ve wanted to be able to build instrument panels like I saw the pros do. The biggest thing preventing me was the lack of instrument decals. Well those days are over. Airscale has now released a sheet of Luftwaffe instruments designed specifically for fighters. You get a small sheet of approximately 1”x 2” which contains enough instruments to do a couple of instrument panels.

Printed by Fantasy Printshop, every instrument is accurately reproduced with some exquisitely fine range markings and numbers. Airscale recommends cutting out the instruments. I think you can use your Waldron Punch and Die set as well if you are careful.

Also included in the set is a piece of clear acetate to help you replicate the instrument faces on your scratch built panel. You’ll need a punch set to punch out the acetate sheet as there is no ‘cutouts’ for the instruments.

Review Author
Roger Rasor
Published on
April 22, 2011
Company
Wingnut Wings, Ltd
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$19.00

Wingnut Wings is now offering decal sheets for markings that go far beyond those included in their growing line of WW I aircraft kits. The decals are packaged in zip-lock sleeves along with a comprehensive full color 4-page instruction booklet that includes application instructions, aircraft profiles, top and bottom wing plan views, historical information and period photos of each of the aircraft covered by the decal sheets. These sets exhibit the same high level of quality as do all of the kits marketed by Wingnut Wings.

Set 30011 provides markings for five Albatros D.V fighters from Jasta 18. Some of them require upper and under wing lozenge patterns (and rib tape) that Wingnut Wings sells separately.

The markings are for:

A) Albatros D.V 2117/17 flown by Oliver Beaulieu-Marconnay, Jasta 18 in late 1917 (who was credited with 25 victories)

B) Albatros D.V 4594/17 flown by Paul Strähle, Jasta 18 from 1917-1918 (credited with 15 victories)

Review Author
Chad Richmond
Published on
April 20, 2011
Company
Wingnut Wings, Ltd
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$19.00

For those of us who love nothing better than trying to figure out where all of those flying wires go to and how to attach them, New Zealand’s Wingnut Wings has been a blessing and the best thing that has happened to our hobby in many years. 1/32ndscale is a fantastic scale for WWI aircraft, yet they don’t take up a lot of display room. The quality of the Wingnut Wings’ releases is still hard to digest, especially at their very reasonable price and free shipping, to boot. To complement their fantastic kits, they have now started releasing some equally stunning decals, all of which are printed in Italy by Cartograf. The registry is without fault; they are thin, and Wingnut Wings even recommends that a hair dryer be used to get their decals to conform to the model’s surface, instead of setting solutions. Amazingly, it works. Why, I don’t know, but there’s no cleanup afterwards.

Review Author
Chad Richmond
Published on
April 20, 2011
Company
Wingnut Wings, Ltd
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$12.50

Editor's note: Sheet no.s 30001 and 30002 - $12.50 each; 30005 - $7.50

For those of us who love nothing better than trying to figure out where all of those flying wires go to and how to attach them, New Zealand’s Wingnut Wings has been a blessing and the best thing that has happened to our hobby in many years. 1/32ndscale is a fantastic scale for WWI aircraft, yet they don’t take up a lot of display room.

Review Author
Rod Lees
Published on
April 16, 2011
Company
Squadron Products
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$10.00

The first order of business: Extreme thanks to Squadron Mail order/MMD for providing IPMS/USA yet another review item. These folks are one of the oldest and most well-known plastic model kit distributors in the world, and we appreciate their providing us with review items!

This sheet highlights one of my favorite aircraft; the “Aardvark”, or F-111. Designed for use on the new Hobbyboss kits, it would be equally at home on the Academy versions.

The markings on this sheet are for three aircraft of a unit that I used to track while assigned to 17th AF in Sembach, Germany; the 20th FW from Upper Heyford in the UK. They used to fly down and “practice bomb” us on occasion… quite a “free” airshow, and guaranteed to soil your pants if you didn’t see them coming in full afterburner.

Review Author
Andy Renshaw
Published on
August 22, 2021
Company
Afterburner Decals
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$15.00

Classic Airframes created quite a stir when they released their TA-4J in 1/48 scale. At long last, decal manufactures had a great excuse to make some of the very colorful markings found on the two-seat Skyhawk! Afterburner Decals wasted no time, and quickly released this sheet. Now, we all know that Hasegawa very soon after released their version of the TA-4J, but fear not as even though this sheet was printed for the Classic Airframes kit, they fit the Hasegawa kit just fine. For those that have noticed, the Classic Airframes kit looks to be a modification of the Hasegawa A-4 kit, thus both TA-4J kits are virtually identical in size and shape. In fact, for this review, I used a Hasegawa kit.

Review Author
Robert DeMaio
Published on
April 6, 2011
Company
Bombshell Decals
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$16.00

Bombshell Decals continue rolling out extremely nice decals! This release of the B-26C Marauders contains decals to build two aircraft except for one set of the National Stars, and one set of standard Curtis prop blade markings. A note explains that two of the Curtis markings would often wear off; therefore enough decals are provided for two aircraft. If you used Bombshell decals already, you will find the same quality in this bag. All the decals have a sheen and easily seen against the flat paper surface. The clear flash around each decal is minimal if you elect to trim them. Veterans of decal applications using gloss surfaces and solvents will probably not trim them. All the numbers and letters have clear film for proper spacing and decrease distortion when applied. There are no signs of color overlap which makes the decals crisp and clear. This is very obvious just looking at the nose art ladies. You can actually see blush on their faces and highlights in their hair.