Starfighter Decals have recently released a P-26 decal sheet #4802. Price being $12 plus $2 postage to Australia. I'd never used any of this companies decals before, so didn't know what to expect. The sheet contains indivdual markings for 4 aircraft and national insignia for 2 aircraft. Once i actually recieved the decals i had no doubts as to the quality as they are printed by Cartograph- my favourite decal manufacturer. Printing is perfect, so it was just a question of how well will they actually fit the intended kit.
I decided to imediately get out one of my two P-26 kits (this one being an original HC kit that i got at a swap meet for $2) and do a build. I was still in a Golden Wings mood after doing the AM F3F-1.
I decided to do the Bolling Field, DC aircraft. I kind of had Bolling Field on the mind due to running around in it's post apocalyptic ruins in the PC game Fallout 3. I had doubts about the workabilty of the one piece nose ring decal with the dark blue stripes. I was thinking i'd need to mask and paint those...but no harm in at least giving the decals a try. Well they worked perfectly. Both the HC kit and the new Starfighter decals are fine products.
I prefer these colourful subjects factory fresh...hence the high clean gloss finish. Probably not to scale, but i finish my models for myself however i like at the time- that's the advantage of not building for competitions.
Now that it's over i have two relevent questions. 1. Why didn't Hobby Craft do all their models as good as this one? 2. Are Starfighter Decals going to do more 48 scale P-26 sheets? Afterall they have several sheets in 1/72.
Andrew
