T01S Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star (1950's & '60s)

Dave Burgess
Bird #2 in the Thunderbirds series. I'm having *REAL* fun with these decal sheets. Most of the kits (T-33, F-100D, F-105, F-4, T38) were produced by Hasegawa in the mid-'70s to mid '80s, and the decal sheets have deteriorated badly. They've dried out, and become VERY brittle. I've had to buy decal sheets on EBay, and they too are in rough shape. I ended up by brush painting Testors gloss lacquer over the decals to keep them from shattering when they're dipped in water. I first tried airbrushing the lacquer on, but I found I needed a thicker coat. I'm working through the kits now, and dealing with the decal issues as I come across them.

Dave Burgess
Minor error n this one. Didn't realize, until it was too late, that the tail surfaces had to be painted white before the red scallops & stars were applied. One of the problems with the various decal mfgs. Some of the sheets also provide the white, others don't By the time I realized, I'd already applied a bunch of decals, and was beyond the turning point. I addressed this problem on the F-100 and F-105, but I'll just have to live with my mistake on the T-33.

Dave Burgess
Another problem cropped up during the build. The kit-provided decal sheet was incomplete. They provided no decals for the drop tanks, instead indicating they had to be painted, but no stencil for that. Having built his one before, I knew the first one I built DID provide decals, so I found Microscale sheet #72-133 on EBay and purchased it. I had perviously purchase this sheet about 3 decades ago, and built all 3 versions (T-Birds, Blue Angels and Golden Knights). Unfortunately this decal sheet also suffered from deterioration, forcing me to touch up a couple of the red scallops. I've now purchased THREE Microscale T-Birds decal sheets in the past 6 weeks (T-33, T-38 F-100) that have splintered when wet. After the first one, I started carefully testing unused decals on the sheet, before applying them. The best fix I found was to brush paint over the decals with Testors clear lacquer (a spray coat was too thin).

Ben M
My solution has been to scan the old sheets and if they shatter/are too much of a hassle, I print new ones via sts decals. I recently purchased some decal paper for my printer and next time I'll try making my own. I have cut out simple ones from scans with my cricut to make masks to paint the markings, another option.

Dave Burgess
The problem there is that MANY of the decal nufacturers print on light blue paper (intentionally, I think), so that if there is much clear carrier (like around letters), the printed decal sheet has a blue tinge. You can play around with the image to get rid of that, but it usually changes the colour hues of the images on the sheet. I did that very thing with all of these T-Bird sheets, and the results were disappointing. Also, the print 'thickness' is much less than the silkscreen, so that unless you're printing on white decal paper, the model colour tends to show through. Printing on white is not really an option for lettering (like 'USAF').