Yellowed decals...what to do?

Hi everyone,
I just received one of my long time dream models, a tamiya alfa Romeo 155 v6 dtm ( the red one) :tongue:

Problem is that the decal sheet seems in bad condition. Yellowed and almost brown in some spots. It looks like the decals either absorbed too much humidity and then dried up because I can see tiny cracks running across on them....

Should I try to ask the seller to get me a new set of decals? What do you guys recommend?

Where can I find replacements? Studio 27 has them....

I'll try to upload some shots when I can

Buonasera,

First of all, sunlight is a great cure for yellowed decals. You can tape the decal sheet (in a sealed plastic bag!) to your window and in a few days you should see quite a difference. In your case there are several things to consider, however. First of all, I found that the decals become yellow again over time after the sunlight (UV) treatment. Secondly, if it's so bad that they're brown in some areas then perhaps they are too far gone. The biggest worry for me would be, however, the cracking. I found that if the decals have little cracks all over them then they will completely disintegrate once submerged in water. You could counter that with liquid decal film but in my case the cracks remained quite visible so my Jagermeister 155 does not have one of the decal sheets at the moment. You can easily test this on a spare decal (something from the lower area of the kit with the manufacturer's logo, for example) to see how they will behave when wet.

You could try to ask the seller for a new decal set but if it's an old kit then something like this is always the risk. I would just go for the S27 decals and in the end they might look better than the kit ones anyway.

Good luck.

Personally I would just buy new decals from Studio 27. Many of the older kits I have from Tamiya have yellowed decals so I just replaced them all with new ones. You can get the Alfa ones from either HobbyLink Japan or Mediamix Hobby, both Studio 27 and Museum collection have sheets....

dont put them in a sealed bag that will cause condensation, wax paper and sunlight and youre good

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm still going to contact the seller and ask him what he has to say.

Thanks again

The seller will probably say that the kit is 17 years old, so what did you expect? The decals from that era wasn't truly great even when new. I have built the kit at that time and all the white areas in the original decals are not truly opague. A brand new sheet from Studio27 will do the trick - but don't expect the seller to pay for that.

Flemming

Funny thing this...
...I had the same experience some years ago with the decals for exactly the same kit;
the Nannini / Larini Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti DTM car from 1993.
My decals also cracked into tiny pieces when I applied them :mad:
Not a pleasant memory at all... took many hours to sort out (and this was before the Studio27 decals were out)