The Little World

Some modellers like very complex paint jobs on their models. If they cannot achieve it with the airbrush they resort to decals. And the full-size paint shops are all for this as well. The number of special and commemorative schemes that roll out are staggering. And I hate ’em all.

Of course there are some you cannot dodge. If you are going to make a WWII French plane you nearly always have to do a three-tone pattern. Likewise with the Israelis. And I am avoiding some of the foolishly technical digital schemes the Russians try. I relish something as simple as the black/silver of the Junkers.

The ordinary sequence of painting is to do the lighter shades first and then add the dark ones to edge them evenly. In this case the bottom is coal black – almost like a bomber but it is the lesser portion of the scheme and there are hard edges to paint to. So it gets to go first. This also sets up for the experiment of airbrushed registration letters.

In this small scale there are no commercial stick-on letters or numbers left anymore. Letraset has long gone out the window with the rise of computers. In this case I found out the size and font needed from the Canadian chap’s article and duplicated it on my iMac – printing the black letters on sticky label sheets. These are not too hard to cut out if you use a new thin Excel blade on a Tamiya cutting mat and learn to cut away from the weak points. The stencils can then adhere somewhat to the flat surfaces while you stick them down with masking tape.

You have to spray thin, dry paint in patient layers to fill the letters in on the corrugated surfaces and be careful not to flood the edges. Then a very short drying period and you can peel things off.