Representing flush-riveting on model aircraft is a perennial problem. In the early days many kits were plastered with enormous raised rivets that would have looked more appropriate on a steam locomotive, for the last couple of decades most kits avoid them altogether and just feature engraved panel lines, and lately has seen a growing trend towards embossed rivets which are usually heavily overdone

Some modellers achieve spectacular results by painstakingly embossing rivets by hand, but this is a time consuming and skilled task - and, of course, embossing isn't strictly accurate for representing flush rivets anyway...

Mike Grant has come to rescue of modellers' eyesight and sanity with the release of an easy alternative - a very novel set of rivet decals. The decals are screen printed to a high standard, being thin and glossy with minimal carrier film. The set comprises two sheets of rivets - one printed in silver, the other in dark grey.

The sheets are each broken down into three basic sections:

32 x strips of rivets printed in straight lines.
57 x strips of rivets printed in a variety of radii to fit curved surfaces.
A selection of rectangular, circular and oval patterns for access panels.

The rivets are nominally 1/48 scale, and they are probably best suited for 1/48 and above - obviously, the larger the scale of the model, the truer to scale they will appear. In my opinion they may be a little oversized for 1/48 scale rivets, per se, but even here they will really come into their own representing panel fasteners.

The use of both grey and silver is a very clever move. The grey should look excellent on dark colour schemes to give a hint of un-weathered rivets, and the silver opens up some intriguing possibilities, including applying the decals and then spraying a thinned top coat of the camouflage colours to tint the decals give the effect of rivets/fasteners beginning to appear as a result of wear and tear.

But apart from their designed use, the decals immediately inspire ideas for representing other items. In cockpits they could reproduce small buttons or circuit breakers (and, thinking right outside the box, I can imagine applications for figures and warships) - basically these decals will be extremely useful for any task that needs a number of small identically sized dots.

Conclusion

I'm looking forward to trying out Mike Grant's rivet decals in my upcoming builds, so I'll post more details of the results in due course. However, on the basis of this first look, I predict they'll prove to be a very useful addition to my workshop for a variety of modelling tasks - and if Mike can print a set of even smaller "rivets" I'll definitely pounce on them! Recommended.

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