Model Forum / General / Models / December 2005

Try sticking it thru a plastic bag or saran wrap. The plastic from the
baggie will stretch to a near perfect fit. Stop pushing as you meet the
mask line. You can get flexible masking tape "fine line tape" at auto
paint stores too. You can cut a mask from thin card also.

Hard lines are usually masked, soft lines may be sprayed freehand with
an airbrush (you learn as you go, in this case) or done with "soft
masks" - a paper mask which stands off of the surface a tad and allows a
bit of overspray of the mask line.  The amount of standoff (and how you
hold the airbrush - again, you learn as you try) can determine the
amount of overspray.

Since you have an airbrush (which will give you more control than a
spray can), you could also try it this way - paint the radome the basic
aircraft color, and then get an index card and cut a hole in it to fit
the line where you'd like the color break to be.  Then spray the second
color.  A draftman's circle template can help for cutting a nice round
circle using an X-Acto.

Another way is to use a good flexible masking tape.  Smoothly mask the
whole area and then use an X-Acto (or single edged razor blade) to cut
away the part you wish to expose for painting.  Drawing the line onto
the tape with a pencil first may also help aid your cut.

Hope it all goes well for you and you son - great to see new builders on
the scene.  Enjoy.

Hi AC,

Welcome to the club,I'll try to answer some of your questions :

Try cutting a piece of masking tap to a width of  just about 1/16" (2 mm)
this will be flexible enough to allow you to conform to the rear edge of the
nose cone, you can then use wider pieces of tape to fill in behind this
line.

Try to use a genuine masking tape as this will stick better than "sellotape"
(sorry I'm in the UK and don't know the generic term for this in the US),
masking tape will also be less likely to lift any underlying paint off.

To get irregular lines (for camoouflage for example) card masks can be used,
try checking out some of the aircraft modelling websites you'll get lots of
good advice and tips, together with some inspirational ideas for this
fantastic hobby.  Take a look here

www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

www.hyperscale.com

www.modelingmadness.com

Hope this helps.

Happy modelling
Ant

Try using tape (Tamiya brand is best, or the ordinary
household type will do) but sliced into
thin strips (a freshly-bladed hobby knife and a steel ruler
are needed to do
this precisely) about 3 - 5 mm wide.

Generally, the tighter the compound curve to be wrapped
around, the thinner the strip of tape needs to be.
Once you are satisfied you have a clean edge all the way
round, then you can patch
other odd pieces of tape behind the first strip, or use a
peel-off latex glue to mask behind the line.

One extra piece of advice is to keep the tape slightly under
tension - but do not to stretch it -
as you wrap around the radome line, and you will get as good
a line as the pros.
If you mark out periodic points on a scheme where the line
has to go - the long cheatlines on
airliners, or the boot lines around a ship's hull for
instance - you can soon learn to let the
tape strip find the smoothest line between 2 points.

Good luck - my son now nearly 20 still keeps his
Thunderbirds and ST Voyager kits we made
many many years ago. Although he doesn't make any physical
kits nowadays, but builds virtual
vehicles and spaceships for his PC games.
I like to assume there's some connection :)

In my experience, the best way to get masking tape to go down smoothly and
evenly on a conical surface (like a nose cone) is for it to be cut in a
curved shape itself. I use a plastic circle template that has circles of
various diameters, and a sheet of glass for a cutting surface. It's pretty
much trial and error: choose a diameter that looks right and use it to guide
you knife blade as you cut your masking tape (I highly recommend Tamiya
masking tape for this: it's very thin and just sticky enough. Thinner tape
gives you less paint build-up at the demarcation). Freehand cut a wider
diameter to produce a horseshoe-shaped piece of tape. Try it on the nose
cone. It'll most likely be too big or too small a diameter. Keep trying with
other diameters until you find one that goes around smoothly and evenly.
HTH.
Pip Moss