Brian,

I have used all, but my experience with Walther's Solvaset was to dilute
it with a little water as I have had decals shrivel up when using it
straight from a new bottle. It can be quite strong, but loses some of
it's potency after the bottle has been around for a while.

A friend of mine was working on an Precision Scale Borden's milk car
that had decals that were a series of overlays for the four milk bottles
that were two to each side. He had all but the last one done finished
when he ran out of Solvaset. All that was left to do was add the
overlay with the black bottle outline and bottle labeling decal to it.
When he added the overlay, he forgot and opened and used a brand-new
bottle of Solvaset without diluting a little of it with water.
Bye-Bye-Bye overlay! It shriveled right up! He is still looking for a
set of those decals ten years later as they were made for those cars only.

I have not had any difficulty with the other solutions, although the
MicroScale and ThinFilm decals do need a little more care in the
application as they do have a tendency to disintegrate. If you have
decals that have surface cracks, are very old, or are very thin, you can
either airbrush them with a clear lacquer or use MicroScale's Liquid
Decal Film which can be brushed over the decal in question. This will
seal any surface breaks and/or give added strength to the really thin
decals so that they will hold up to the setting solution better.

Tom Olsen
Newark, Delaware

Brian Carlson wrote: