Hello

For some time, more or less since the beginning of this year, information about problems with applying our decals has been reaching us in various ways. There were a dozen or so cases, which we usually found out about by accident. The problem is that we had two formal complaints related to this... All the rest of our knowledge is based on various types of more or less precise rumors, entries on fb groups and forums. Unfortunately, very rarely are there any specifics in all this, i.e. which specific sets it concerns and what kind of problems they are. From this fragmentary information, it was only possible to determine that:

- Decals are meant to be very thin and difficult to apply

- decals crack during application

- the problems affect some sets produced in the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022

- most of these comments came from the Belgian modeling community

The strangest thing for us in all this was that we were criticized for various things, but the opinions about the application and working with our decals were always very positive, we often got praise that working with them is a pleasure

We made some tests with sets from this period and indeed the decals are thin and careless handling causes the risk of breaking, especially larger elements, but it is enough to use ordinary water, possibly with a drop of washing-up liquid and do not regret it, so that the decal floats on the surface model and without any specifics there is no problem with the application.

And finally, in the spring, we received a complaint with a detailed description and photos. It was about the set

 D48163 Netherlands F-16 Insignia's & stencils Generic set purchased directly from us. It sounded like this:

Good morning,
I unfortunately have problems with the quality of my decals. This is a decal set of the F-16 Royal Air Force Royal Netherlands Air Force. In the beginning of putting the no step lines on the hull, the lines tore every now and then. Can happen of course and luckily I still had spare decals from an old kit. unfortunately some decals kept cracking. Also this weekend I was unlucky again, because the orange triangles started to tear and also the other texts around the front of the F-16.

The decals that crack mainly tear in fairly tight lines. I myself think that something went wrong with the printing of the decals with you. I have ordered this set from you many times and never had any problems.

It is a pity that I now have a set that is largely torn.
Hope something can be resolved.

In fact, this message was the key to the whole problem, but it is also a model example of how to behave in such a situation. We do not write complaints on the internet, we do not write everywhere that "ModelMaker are bad and ussles", and we do not answer questions about what is wrong with silence. It is enough to send us a complaint, we will always consider it and for eleven years of running the company, we have considered complaints negatively maybe three times....

But back to the topic. Without boring you with the details of the investigation, we managed to determine together with our printing house that during the printing process in the period mentioned earlier, there were sheets with unprinted varnish (this is the transparent film in the decal, it allows you to keep the drawing in its entirety and transfer it to the model). The problem is that this applies to a relatively small part of the print (several percent) and often not even all elements on the sheet.

Therefore, we would like to inform you that such a problem may occur on a small number of our decals and it concerns sets from the mentioned period, and probably not all of them, and at the moment we know that such cases were in sets D..163, D..174 and D..178. In this case, please submit a complaint to us by e-mail. How to do it in a model way is shown on the described example, while the absolute condition for a positive consideration is SENDING PHOTOS OF THE DAMAGED DECAL.

To sum up, if the decals fall apart when you put them in water or if they break while transferring it to the model, we do not lament on the internet, we do not write that ModelMaker decals are all bad and do not buy because they are bad, just send us an e-mail first, necessarily with photos :)

As for the decal application itself, we want to create a guide for you in which we will describe and show you with examples how to deal with our decals. Behind him he will rise are only two pieces of advice. You use a lot of water during the application, the decal will not stretch or crack while flowing on the layer of water on the model, the water may be cold and you can add drops of dishwashing liquid to it. Generally, you don't need to use softeners for decals and they lay down well without it. Although our decals work well with most of the most popular liquids, there are quite aggressive products on the market that can cause damage when used improperly. We advise using liquids after putting the decal in place.

So much for today

We hope this clears up some rumors and well, from our point of view, often unfair assessments of our overall products.

Best Regards

ModelMaker Team