Steve's Models

[Sailor Steve]

I ended up doing a lot of touch-up work yesterday. After applying decals and letting them dry I added a gloss coat that made the ink run. I had used a Sharpie to apply the black edging to the wing edges and fuselage corners, and they had to be redone. Then I realized I had forgotten to put the cute little 'M-S' logo on the nose. I took it into the kitchen and just ran some water on the tiny decal. Some decals soak for 30 seconds and then have to be soaked again because they just won't come off. This one came of just fine. After 5 seconds under running water. Came off by itself and fell into the sink. And down the drain. I looked through all my spare decal sheets for another one, with no luck. I looked online, but nobody seems to make them except the ones that come with the kits. I finally downloaded a good photo of the nameplate and used a good publishing program to reduce it to 1/16th inch across, then cut it out and glued it on. It's not as good as the decal, but it will do.

I was about to paint the wood panels on the sides of the nose when I decided to try the wood-grain decal sheet one of the suppliers had sent me for free. I don't know how it would look covering the whole side of a big two-seater, but in this case it looks very good.

Single-seat Morane-Saulnier 'L' - The world's first fighter aircraft.




Close-up of tail, showing manufacturer's mark.


Close-up of nose, showing wood panelling and Hotchkiss gun.