The Little World

And no-one is patchier than me…

I watched a YouTube post some time ago from a modeller who was making extremely precise masks for spray painting by using his inkjet printer. I believe he was printing on a self-adhesive paper and planned to stick this onto plastic models.

He was very concerned about scaling the picture he saw on his computer screen to match the dimensions of the painting plan – and he took nearly all of the video to explain the mathematics involved.  I shuddered at the thought but filed it way in the mental Rolladex for future use. Today turned out to be the future.

The Special Models 1:72 Northrop Delta has three good diagrams in the instruction booklet showing full-colour camouflage. I wanted to learn a new technique so I slightly modified what I had seen. here’s the steps:

a. I scanned the relevant page onto my computer. I use an Epson V700 but you could use anything as this does not need to be photo-realistic.

b. In Photoshop Elements 14 I opened the file and used the cursor and ruler on screen to see what size the wingspan was.

c. I measured the wingspan of the Delta model with a ruler. It was 205mm and the plan showed 150mm. It was simple to press Command+ T and then just run the wings up to 205mm – everything else in the drawing follows suit.

d. Then I printed out a couple of sheets of this on plain typing paper with the lowest resolution and ink use.

The idea I wanted to use to make the mask was to tear the paper along the printed lines carefully wherever I was protecting the brown paint and then wrap it or stick it to the plane. The wings and tail were easy as they are flat surfaces – I used the parts that were to be sprayed green to space out thee mask paper and more or less assembled it on the model with masking tape or a few dots of mild double-sided sticky tape.

The fuselage wrap needed some imagination but I found I could wrap the paper over the top and draw the pattern freehand as per diagram and then tear that out. Tearing rather than cutting was part of the experiment as I wanted to leave a slightly feathered edge to the green paint. I’d tried it out on scrap pieces first…

You can see the thing clearly in the photos – and the underside shows you why the executives of the masking tape company can afford to take Bermuda vacations every year…

Well, the bird is in the oven with a lovely green coating. I can only hope that when the unpeeling comes that I don’t find I’ve cooked the goose.