Bill Cross reviews Archer Fine Transfers' Panther & Tiger stencils.



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Thanks!

Bill is there any chance of you splitting the decals into their three parts and putting up pictures of each segment in a larger size so that the detail can be clearly seen? If not please Email me a large scan of the decals and I will do it for you.

Hmm, I would have hoped to get the numbers in red rectangles that marked the steps for sealing the turret inside the Early Tigers.

David

I think the water-slide decals are actually a pretty good idea here, especially for the interior stenciling where access for alignment with dry-transfers and burnishing tools might be a problem.

And, most guys are more comfortable using water-slide decals anyways, so this might make these more attractive to those folks too.

And the price is, IMO, pretty reasonable, as you point out, Bill. But more than just the research aspect is at hand. I think the mere availability of these kinds of markings makes the price acceptable.

It would be nice for kit manufacturers to provide these kinds of marking for armor models, just like aircraft kit makers do. Large, comprehensive decal sheets which include maint. and service stencils have been the norm for aircraft kits for just about forever, but armor modelers seem to have been left out in the cold when it comes to this.

So, sheets like these go a long way towards fixing what is an actual problem.

In the absence of the kit manufacturers doing right by armor modelers and providing us with all of the markings needed for their various models (like they do with aircraft), I'd love to see more products like this from Archer and others.

My .02...

UPDATE
I checked with Archer, and they do NOT WANT these decals blown up the way you suggested because of concern about "do it yourselfers" who would use the images to avoid buying them. As I mentioned earlier, Increasingly I see terrible images from decal manufacturers who are worried about this sort of thing, and frankly I can't blame them.

Archer did ask me to point out these decals are manufactured by Cartograf, and are the only products they sell they don't make themselves. The reason is the high level of quality that Cartograf has reached.


David, I have adjusted my review to reflect the fact this sheet is very extensive, but not exhaustive. Of course, it's difficult to get any one product to be all-inclusive, and I think Archer has done an excellent job. Ron Owen Hayes did the research, and evidently he made a decision not to include those markings, perhaps for space reasons?

And I agree about the aircraft kit makers including stencils in many kits for years now; why can't the armor guys?