Many years ago, when I started my resurrection of a badly-built Estes Saturn 1B, I purchased a nice decal for the SM from Excalibur.

Now I'm actually finishing the model (which I flew "naked" a few years back). Not trying to do a great job, TBH, just making it presentable for a July 20th launch.

I delayed gluing on the four service module attitude rockets, figuring I could glue them on after the decal, scratching away enough of the film to make a paintable service.

I measure down the specified .72" on the decal and found . . . nothing that would suggest a "pad" for the thrusters. But a little further down were little yellow rectangles.

Moreover, there was not way I could fit the entire decal on the model's SM. I know I wasn't very careful with this model (I started it in 1974!) but I couldn't imagine being about a half-inch off.

Then I noticed a fine dotted line a bit down from the "top" of the decal.

I got out my "digital" ruler, and sure enough, the yellow rectangles were about .72" down from the dotted line.

I'm asking the hivemind here . . . am I correct in my assumption that I need to trim off the top of the decal at this point?

Why was it on there to begin with?

Is there anything I need to know about this decal?

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NAR #27085 - Oregon Rocketry - SAM