Flags

[Martin H UK]

I am coming to the completion of my first models in many years - two IJN cruisers, Nachi and Myoko (1/700). I am almost ready to flag them up, and I wondered what members of the forum preferred to use for flags? The old Waterline kits stashed in my loft (of which Myoko is one) have self-adhesive paper flags which seem a little thick, but are easier to work with. Most kits now seem to come with decals for flags (as does Nachi, which is the Hasegawa remould), but I'm not sure about them - chiefly because they'd be very brittle, would need matting down and very careful trimming to get rid of the clear surround, and are also very fiddly (as I am finding) to bend accurately around the rigging. So does anyone have any alternatives, or are decals the way everyone goes now?

Thanks for any tips on this


Martin

[Anthony P]

Hello Martin,

Do you drink wine?
What I do these days (at least in 1/350 - 1/400) is to stick a flag decal to a small piece of lead foil from a wine bottle, coat it with Johson's Klear (Future) and trim it after it dries. Still fiddly, but easier to handle. Works well when the flag is on a flagstaff, but is more difficult to glue to rigging because of the weight. You might want to take a look at the results on my Heller Luetzow in the gallery.
In 1/700 and for signal flags in 1/350, an alternative, suggested by Jim Baumann, is to make your own flags from thin paper. Tried that for signal flags on my Yukikaze -not easy either!
HTH
Anthony Polychroniadis

[Sparrow]

I print my 1/700 flags on adheshive paper. I use the one used for CD�s stickers, which is relatively thin.

I know they are still too heavy (and slightly overscale), but they work for me.

[johndon]

There's this article on the site: http://www.modelwarships.com/features/c ... flags.html that details the use of foil as a backing for the decals. I've used the same method a few times now with good results.

John

[Stefano Salesi]

Ok...Anthony suggest to "drink wine" and i...will suggest another bad habit...smoke self-made cigarettes.
If you make your own cigarettes you have the thin and useful rolling paper..i use them for canvas covered railings, flags, covered boats and canopies of a/c.

2 ways of making a flag

The (very) hard one
simply take one rolling paper and paint on it the flag, leaving an extra thin part of the adhesive stripe free from the paint. while the color is setting, give shape to the flag, putting it on toothpics or anything else wich is round and of the correct size.
then apply a matt coat, wich give some strenght to the flag.
than, gently moist the adhesive part of the rolling paper free from the paint, and stick it to the boom. a final coat of matt brushed on the contact part will stick the thing forever.

another way is to take the rolling paper, cut to size, soak with diluited white glue, let it dry and give shape (toothpics or so on) apply on this the kit's decal. the rolling paper is very thin, but once soaked with paint or white glue is very rigid and keep the shape very well.

Ok, now it's just time to...a cigarette (bad habit, i know...)

[Martin H UK]

Dear Anthony, Luis, John and Stefano
Many thanks for the helpful suggestions. I'll have a lot of fun experimenting with tricky little bits of foil and paper. I have a friend who rolls his own cigarettes so I should be able to blag some samples of his papers, though he'll be a bit perplexed as to why I want them!

Cheers


Martin

[Stefano Salesi]

just for an hint, i use RIZLA short, Blue or RIZLA short, Silver....the silver is more thin, nut lack in durability and behave bad with water-based paints...i will post a pic of a flag made in the second way (rolling paper and kit decal)...