Eduard decals, are they really that bad?
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- čas přidán 15. 08. 2023
- Welcome to the Scale Modelling Cafe and another chat. I've recently finished a couple of Eduard's new tool Bf 109Fs in 1:72 scale and I used some of the kit decals. Here's my opinion!
- Jak na to + styl
10 minutes viewing well spent. There's one thing you said that made watching this worthwhile. "Are they as bad as everyone says?...No" I have a load of Eduard kits that I've avoided starting because of concerns over the decals. I wonder if perhaps us modellers are a bit wary of anything new, me included. Would be nice to see a follow up demonstration of how you apply these successfully. Thanks for alleviating some of my concerns.
All certainly do that on my next Eduard kit mate
Thanks Jamie, good to get an opinion from someone who knows what they are talking about. What surprises me though, is how a top, top modelling company put their great reputation at risk by not nailing their in-house decals before releasing them.
Thanks Phil
Thanks for the information. I intend to try them as you have on this kit. I think (maybe wrong!) that have been improved since the Zero release. Would be good if you could put together a full tutorial on using the new decals if you get time!
Next Eduard kit I do I'll do a separate video mate
@@thescalemodellingcafe Look forward to that cheers 👍
Thanks for that Jamie. I have a number of Eduard’s kits and it is good to get an opinion from a respected source. Cheers!
Thanks Guy
Hello Jamie, haven’t use these as yet, thanks for sharing your thoughts cheers Liam
Cheers Liam
I used Eduard decals only once. It was stencil set for 1/32 Spitfire Mk.IX. It was amazing and I loved the result. I painted rest of the markings.
I prefer to paint mine too
Thanks for making this video, Jamie. I haven't tried the new Eduard decals yet, but I did find that the ones in my Special Hobby 1/48 CA-13 behaved in a manner such as those by Eduard, in that I was able to remove the carrier film after the decals had dried, and was left with what looked like painted on markings. Perhaps the same company that does the Special Hobby decals does the new Eduard decals, as both companies are in the Czech Republic?
I believe Eduard do their decals.
Hi Jamie, good assessment of Eduard's decals. Agree with you. To complement this view I would like to share my fresh experience with EDUARD's stencils decals. I have just finished EDUARD' s 1:48 Tempest Mk. V with all main markings sprayed, but I decided to use stenciles supplemented with the kit. The stenciles are not bad, looks good and the peeling of the transparent film was without problem. So black stencils were OK, but when I started with the red stenciles, I noticed that there is a visible white color offset of the red. EDUARD seems to use white as the base for the red color to insure that the red is not transparent and that it has the right color/hue. Unfortunately the two colors were not succesfully aligned on my decal sheet so the red stencils turned out to be unusable for me. So I decided to buy HGW wet transfer stencils for Tempest and used them. I can say that HGW stencils are way better then Eduard's: not only the red ones are faultless but also both red and black letters are much crisper and all the letters are perfectly readable, even the smallest ones. Conclusion: Eduard's black stencils are OK, red ones are not usable. HGW wet transfers are superior to EDUARD's in all aspects but they costs some additional money.
I've got an Eduard Tempest near the top of the pile, I have the HGW set for it!
I haven’t used the new Eduard decals yet apart from the odd stencil, I rely heavily on Montex paint masks and those others whose name escapes me at present.
As a result I now have more unused decals than Tamiya ones 😂
That said , I recently tried HGW decals and applied them and left them overnight before peeling them and they worked like a dream .
I may revisit the Eduard decals and follow the ‘leave overnight’ technique and see how they go .
I removed the carrier film after a few hours and it worked great however on decal cracked along the panel lines, I suspect it was still settling into the detail.
The most concerns in Eduard decals were about stencils and technical writings, because they are screwing small and can be screwed up totally if something goes wrong.
They are very small but I think sport on!
@@thescalemodellingcafe sure! but if they tear when you remove the carrier film...
In my experience the new decals are much better than the earlier ones which were a disaster for me. However, I would opt for regular decals any day. Unfortunately the main selling point of Eduard kits are the beautifully researched markings.
Plenty of options in the after market too!
Had a happy accident whilst building their 48 scale Fokker DVII...I was impatient to see how the top wing would look so temporarily attached it to the upper fuselage with White tack. I,d already applied the under wing lozenge decals and when removing the top wing,some of the carrier film came off,but quite cleanly...emboldened I did the whole of the wing with with blobs of white tack and the carrier film came off in sheets leaving a nicely recalled wing with a nice slightly satin finish
Great result Howard, I love a happy accident!
I’ve built a few of their recent kits. I never try to remove the top-film. A simple coat of an overall matte and their sheen completely disappears regardless.
Its one less layer for the surface detail I guess, but they do perform great.
I think they're fine. I experimented with some of the spares in the 1/48 Wildcat. They went down into the details well, even better with some setter. I used Gloss coat - decals- gloss coat - flat coat and the film disappeared. Wasn't going to try removing the film - I'm not a gambling man 😄.
If the varnish gets rid of the carrier film then I guess there's no point in removing it!
@@thescalemodellingcafe to be honest, I did try earlier removing some before the clear coat. It looked great but some decal came away too. I’m not man enough for that degree of risk at that stage of the model 😄
Thanks for the heads up . I have quite a few Eduard kits in the stash and I've always loved their kits . But as I am a casual modeller I've always bought Eduard because of their old decals as you cant go wrong with cartograph. I'm yet to build one of their kits with the new style decals but I hope they are better than the keyboard warriors are stating as I am one of those who bought Eduard for their fantastic schemes so if they are terrible, then the reason for me buying Eduard will go . So for the casual modeller maybe Eduard have made a mistake as I'm sure there are many modellers like me . Great video though so Thank you 👍
They are!
I love them, but there seems to be an certain inconsistency with the quality from kit to kit. Even two kits with the exact same boxes and codes can have different quality decals. So far I have been very lucky and I like them very much!
Interesting, I've not noticed that yet.
I have had mixed results with the new style decals when peeling the carrier film off, some come awy fine, others take sections of the decal with it (admittedly these were early editions of this type of decal & i have some newer kits to try out before i cast my own opinion 😁)
I have noticed some colour issues on some through, But decals aside, i still think Eduard are top of the tree when comes to quality/price 👍
The colour issue is the main one for me, but you don't have to remove the carrier film.
The only time I've used were on 2 aftermarket sets for my Tamiya F14 - The ejector seat ones were great - but the ones for the weapons set were terrible - Did not use as the stencil text we so fuzzy and blurred. Looked awuful. On top of that, I think they got the missle placement markings wrong. I ended up using the kit ones.
Oh dear
I like them. I dont peel the carrier film but they go down really well.Cartograph are ok but sometimes they do not always have good adhesive.
I like them too, and peeling the carrier film is definitely optional.
Huh, I've built a few Eduard kits of different vintages, and I can honestly say it has never struck me that there's any issue with the decals. They all seemed fine.
The main issue is the "weak" printing, they seem to work great.
They're like the old Jaguars: They work great -- when they work. The real question is: Are they worth the trouble?
Yes. And they are getting better with every release.
Some people seem to be luckier than others with them. I've had two magazine review kits nearly ruined with them. The reply is always the same. "You just need to learn how to use them"
My answer is always the same "are they better than the Cartograph decals they replaced?"
We know the answer... No they aren't. And I say this as a Eduard fan
Not better than Cartography however I suspect cheaper for them in the long run therefore it makes business sense, as long as they work ok, which they do!
@@thescalemodellingcafe It won't make business sense if they lose business as a result. They may need to rethink. I'm happy to use after market decals myself but some modellers may not want to incur the extra cost of having to buy separate decal sheets.
It does look like some modellers genuinely find this decal system difficult or even impossible and there is nothing more disappointing to get all the way to the decalling stage of a model for it all to go wrong.
Eduard's new decals are excellent, the problem is not knowing how to use them correctly
I do think they have issues but they do go down great
I recently built their f4f they put out last year and it had the new style decals. they were okay but had bit of blotchiness to them on the sheet but once applied looked fine. I tried to peel the film back on some trial decals following various methods and found it worked about 50% of the time. overall I think they are good but I had some initial hesitation with them.
On an unrelated subject, I recently built the F4F Midway dual boxing and had issues with both models where the engine mounting wasn’t secure and the hole in the props was too big for the mounting hub. Both faults can be rectified but I don’t know whether it’s a design flaw or I had a rogue kit !
How did you get on with yours please ?
With standard decals if you don't get them down fully you get a bit of silvering, with these you get a ripped decals. With my first full kit with them I spend extra time making sure they were well down but still had one small bit pull up.
@@Mors_Inimicis everything was great on mine, it was their F4F-3 kit the first one they put out. the only issue I had was I installed the solid part the the gear struts attach to backwards and it through off some parts.
You don't have to remove the film, and they look great under varnish
You say a lot of people don't use the kit decals anyway, which I don't think is really true with Eduard. They have always done many boxing and limited/special edition which is all about the great markings they give us and that's what they sell these kits on. So to then go down in quality from Cartograph, is a bit of a disapointment. Eduard's own decals used to be pretty good so I don't know why they didn't go back to what they were doing before. The printing ( some sheets anyway, maybe not all ) is just not what you expect from modern decals. It feels like a step backwards. I've avoided buying some of the limited edition boxings that I would have bought before and just get the Weekend ones instead.
I know they said the decals aren't designed to have the carrier film removed, then you have to ask what was the advantage of designing them like this then?. The film on top does not seem to have any adhesive on it at all, you can tell this as the film easily peels off when on the sheet still. It's almost like someone at Eduard bought all the equipment to produce these decals without knowing exactly what they were buying! On some sheets the film extends quite a bit further than the decal, but maybe the latest ones are better.
You make some good points mate
I've just been working with an Eduard 1/48 BF109G kit and the decals are TERRIBLE!!. SO I came on line to find out if it was just me or others are having the same trouble. I found this video and I have to say I disagree with everything said. I appreciate the gentlemen has an opinion so here's mine. There are two main problems with the Eduard decals. 1. The backing paper is not glossy smooth. When you try to slide the decals off the backing paper its an incredibly awkward task because the backing paper is relatively rough. I lost quite a few doing it to the point of almost giving up. 2. The carrier film is across the whole sheet so you have to cut out every single little decal by itself. The idea of being able to tack off the carrier film once the decal dries - tried it - lost the decal, it all came off. The comment that most people don't use the kit decals is wrong. Most people DO use the kit decals. Not sure what evidence there is to support that statement. So don't get me wrong, I am loving the Eduard ProfiPack kits, I think they are the future of modelling, but the decals are a huge issue with the kits. I am struggling to justify buying another kit based on this.
Some interesting comments mate. I'm sure most people use the kit decals, I need to re-watch the video for the context and the actual words I say but it is true that the decal aftermarket industry is huge and vibrant. As for the decals performance, they have improved significantly since the early kits and they continue to improve.
Yes they are. I have zero confidence in them and have stopped buying Eduard kits as a result.
Then you are missing out, the kits are truly amazing and there are loads of aftermarket options to choose from! But they work fine.
My main criticism is with the "you're not meant to remove the carrier film" stance for the company. If you choose not to, it's far to easy for the carrier film to come off accidentally during weathering. A clear coat isn't (imho) enough to protect against the risk. Maybe I'm missing something.
It's a real disappointment. I'm a huge fan of the kits. The cartograf decals and the schemes they do used to be a real selling point.
I've not had it come off due to weathering but I can see the risk as enamel products will affect the carrier film
Greatly appreciate your comments on the decals, however it has to be said that these decals aren't easy to get on with
It doesn't matter how long you leave them to set up it is hit and miss if the top flim comes off with out destroying the decal, have made 13 eduard kits with the new decals and to say its a lotary would be a understatement. Great kits , decals....hmmm don't believe all that you here !!!!
You don't have to removed the carrier film, it disappears under a coat of matt or satin varnish!
Dużo moich znajomych modelarzy nie lubi tych nowych kalkomani. Ja osobiście tez ich nie lubie
Having used them on the new 109F I think they are quite good.