[David Dunlop]

Well, I am at another major ‘Learning Curve’ point in this project, so physical work has ground to a halt while I sort out a new process related to the water transfer decals I need to create for the front panel of the Coils assembly.

The actual, correctly sized decals have been done for some time, the tricky bit has been creating the stencils needed to lay down the rectangular, luminous, paint pads the decals end up resting over. These pads of paint will consist of a thin layer of flat white paint to help reflect the glow from the luminous paint, which is put down on top of it, once the flat has cured. I anticipate more than one set of these stencils may be required and the more identical they are to each other the better. That degree of accuracy is beyond my abilities and the prime reason I invested in a new Cricut Maker cutting machine a year or so ago. It can cut multiple identical stencils far better than I could ever hope to by hand with blades and rulers.

The paint pads have to be slightly smaller than the limit of the black area of the decals and just larger than the central printing, to work properly and look as close to the wartime original decals. If you check the photo of the decals I have made in Post #1065 on Page 36 of this thread, you will get an idea of just how the paint pads and overlying decals have to line up. The finished process, if all goes well, should look just like the originals but will have been constructed in reverse order from the originals. With the originals, the luminous paint pads were put down directly on top of the decal film. Black paint was then applied to mask out the lettering, Then any top colours like red, blue or yellow were added before a clear coat of sealer and varnish was added. If you shine a light across the face of your 19-Set today, across the decals, you will see the small ridge of the paint pad under the black paint. Hopefully, my finished decals will have a similar ridge look, the only difference being my paint pad will be under the decal film, not on top of it.

So at this point in time, I have a set of paint pad stencils draw and saved in the correct size on my computer spreadsheet and they print properly. That file has been converted to a format the Cricut cutter can work with and they will download. Just a few more steps to sort out before I can do some test cutting. If all goes well, my brain is already thinking about another stencil I might be able to create for another part of the 52-Set Project down the road.

I shall keep you posted.



David