Liquid Decal Film for old decals

I use Microscale products and have always had good results with my decals. I have used it on old decals and it worked pretty good. 

Thanks chris, for $4 sounds like it is worth a try.  In exploring decals, i had missed that Champs went out of business several years ago (like maybe 2010?). So any of those on line are at least that old.

Clear gloss coat works as well. Flat clear never works. 

a few light coats of gloss. A day or two to dry.

Decal manufacture for 40 years. 

Used Liquid Decal Film on Walthers, Champ and Microscale O Scale decals with only one issue with early manufactured Champ decal that was probably 40 years old. There was some minor ink bleeding on this decal, this decal was still used.  No ink bleed on the Walthers or Microscale decals. With some of the vintage Champ decals, Champ did include a written notice with the decal that this decals had specific conditions that were to be understood by the purchaser when applying. As a rule I apply The Liquid Decal Film to all Champ and Walthers decals and to Microscale decals that I purchased over 4 years ago.

AMCDave posted:

Clear gloss coat works as well. Flat clear never works. 

a few light coats of gloss. A day or two to dry.

Decal manufacture for 40 years. 

AMCDAVE, any particular brand of clear gloss you'd recommend?

Rattle can or airbrush?

Pingman posted:

AMCDave posted:

Clear gloss coat works as well. Flat clear never works. 

a few light coats of gloss. A day or two to dry.

Decal manufacture for 40 years. 

AMCDAVE, any particular brand of clear gloss you'd recommend?

Rattle can or airbrush?

Tamiya is the best....but harder to find. Testors is good and mild.....spray lightly.  TEST it if you can as always. thx

AMCDave posted:

Pingman posted:

AMCDave posted:

Clear gloss coat works as well. Flat clear never works. 

a few light coats of gloss. A day or two to dry.

Decal manufacture for 40 years. 

AMCDAVE, any particular brand of clear gloss you'd recommend?

Rattle can or airbrush?

Tamiya is the best....but harder to find. Testors is good and mild.....spray lightly.  TEST it if you can as always.

Thanks for the fast reply.  This is a very timely topic as I will be using old decals on a long delayed paint project, and the specific decals are no longer available--so those that I have MUST be serviceable or I'll be looking for someone (like yourself, perhaps?) to make some for me.

hokie71 posted:

 Another suggestion is to try Liquid decal film first.   Has anyone had any luck  using this product for old decals and restoring them?

Thanks for any ideas.

 

Microscale Liquid Decal Film. Like Chris, I have used this with great success.

Future (or whatever it's called now) floor wax, diluted.

Thanks for the suggestions- I plan to get a few more of the decals I am interested in and trying these approaches.  BTW, I was looking for Future- or whatever it is now- a few months ago and it was hard to find.  Finally found this at a Walmart super center- made by  SC Johnson, the same company that made Future I think.  I have not tried air brushing with it yet but will try on the old decals.. 

HOKIE71 …. my 2 cents …. earlier this year I bought some NOS Champ decals, and I used Testor's Glosscote with much success.

Good luck

Jim

Hokie 71, good luck and post your results--I'll be in the same position you are in about a month.

Phase I of the testing complete but unfortunately I may have used damaged goods.  these are very old decals. When this thread started I had read someplace about using dull coat.  So the sheet got a coat of dull coat and that did not help to begin.  

Per information in this thread, I tried a few individual decals  with Pledge and a few with testors glosscote.  Unfortunately I had no choice but to apply this on top of the dull coat previously applied.  the result of this was that long decals did not come off, except in pieces.  Small "PRR" logos did come off in one piece with both of these products.  More decals should arrive on the 28th and will start them from scratch.

PS- typically I soak the decals for about two minutes, and then let them stand.  every 30 seconds or so I try to gently slide them off.