The Little World

Okay. You have looked at your 1:72 scale bomber and decided that you do not want to spend another $ 23 on pre-cut masks and you don’t want to spend a week trying to cut your own. What’s the alternative?

Microscale, Humbrol, and GSI Creos would have you believe that painting a liquid mask on the canopy will do the trick. They probably envisage that you will cement the canopy in place and fair it in, but then sit and brush on a coloured rubber or acrylic solution to the parts of the canopy that will be clear, leaving the framing open to take the airbrush spray. Good luck converting that theory into practice.

I’ve tried it. The art of steering a brush or wooden toothpick laden with sticky mask is a delicate one, and you can be pretty well assured that you’ll make a mess of it the first 57 times you attempt it. I succeeded with the front glass of a helicopter but the success was relative to how bad I would have been with masking tape.

All this said, it is a valid technique for fuselage windows that have been cemented into place and that are sitting pretty well flush with the outer skin. As long as the coloured masking fluid doesn’t penetrate into the cabin and set itself around some immovable object, it can be winkled out later. Some masking fluids work better than others, some are foul smelling, and some are problematical over other paint coats, but over a clear window they all work.

The masks advertised as cuttable after setting are more rigid than the rubbery ones. But the idea of cutting around the mask over a delicate clear styrene part is pretty desperate. I tried it, failed, and won’t try it again. If I make a major error I just wait until the mask sets, strip it off, and go again.

The edge that you get at the canopy frame is only as good as you can paint in reverse. The liquid masks can be time-sensitive – mask, wait, and spray but remove the mask before it starts to set too hard. Watch your temperature and humidity. Stand on one foot and recite the magic formula. You’ll wish you were in Kansas again, Dorothy…