So, I spent about 5 hours polishing a turd today. It will look OK for 5 feet away, I guess. Kinda. I did learn some things with this plane apart from rushing never works out well.
1. Don't use Staedtler Pigment Liner pens. The ink reacts poorly to catalyzed polyurethane (which is why they are decorating the bottom of my trash can now).
2. Putting on decals in really high humidity (about 97% when I was doing this) causes moisture to get trapped under the things. It's not pretty.
3. Trying to hide the edges of a decal by shooting additional clear can come out really badly. Had a bit too much reducer in it and ended up having to replace several decals and just decided to live with the others. Never had so much hassle trying to get something to work. More I tried to fix it, the worse it seemed to get. Ugh!
4. Lastly, I found out the medical grade zinc sterate is crap. I've used it for the last 3 planes I've finished and every one of them had adhesion issues. That is also decorating the bottom of my trash can.
Hopefully the next plane I can take my time and have better results.
OK, rant mode off.