The Little World

The Mannix Ltd Lodestar – CF-TDI – will land at Wet Dog Regional Airport tomorrow and be hangared for a space. It waits on the appearance of clear Testor’s decal film in the local hobby shops – there is really no other practical way to get the speed lines and the company logo on the side of the cabin.

As it is, however, it is a pleasing ship. The set of the model is right and the finish has come out well enough to justify the paint choice. I did make several errors as I did it – par for the course – but corrected them rather than let them throw me in despair. And I learned a valuable lesson.

The civil registration of many aircraft is painted on their wings in letters large enough to be seen from the ground. In the case of some military trainers it is large enough to be seen from the commander’s office…But these letters are hard to find in the standard decal sheets unless you have special issue one. How to get big letters…or to get unusual squadron or aircraft codes?

Answer – spray paint ’em on yourself.

You need a stencil for this – and I have been learning how to cut them. The first thing is to determine what material you can use. I bought a roll of expensive German graphic masking film at the hobby shop but found that it had too much adhesive and not enough integrity  – it either tore or gummed up the painted surface.

Then I tried masking tapes of various types – they were better but still distorted as you pressed them onto the painted surfaces, and were miserable to print onto – it was a case of applying the tape to a standard sheet of photo paper and passing it through the printer a couple of times. Then the tape would frequently stick to the photo paper and be rendered unusable when you tried to unpeel it…

Finally I tried a long shot – A box of Avery inkjet label papers that I got at Officeworks. They’re A4 size, cheap as chips, and can pass through the printer set on the simplest ” plain paper ” setting. I tried a repeat of the CF-TDI stencil and it was a breeze to set up. It was also easier to cut than any of the other choices, and when I applied it to a test piece, it lay flat enough to bond well.

I have learned not to brush paint over stencils as the paint will seep in under the edges of the pattern and run into panel lines. I am also favouring a dry spray of lacquer as it dries practically upon contact – no runs. The new airbrush can work in such fine sprays that the need for extensive masking is reduced. The result is ever so much better than before – I’m sorry I didn’t do this experiment before I painted the wings.

Every day a new discovery – I feel like Isaac Newton. If I had a cup of coffee I’d feel like a fig newton…