The Little World

I puzzled about the white horizontal stabiliser and trailing wing surfaces on this Corsair II when I saw the colour call-out.

Of course I was bound to follow the diagram, and as it was the same for most of the variants I knew it was deliberate. Then it struck me – if you did not want to spend a week painting ” No Step ” over the horizontal surfaces you just spray them white and tell the mechanics not to walk on anything white. That would also apply to the rudder…Or you could scatter thumb tacks and make them take their shoes off…

Some people have a great deal of trouble with paint bleed under tapes and masking worms when they spray several colours. I might add that they get massive bleeds under brush painted colours as well – even worse than with the air spray. This is quite understandable as the brush painting has a much thicker layer of liquid applied and it takes a lot longer to dry.

I use several thicknesses of masking tape – both the paper and the plastic variety – when I work on flat or curved surfaces. While I dread raised rivets, I can still get a pretty good seal around them with the plastic tape if I use a satay stick to burnish the edges carefully. As well, I never try to mask at night and spray next day as this gives the tape a chance to curl away from the most stressed areas.

Speaking of the stress areas – like wing roots, scoops, nacelles, etc. I do my best to isolate the worst contours and then give in and coat them with Maskol or one of the GSI Creos liquids. They are hard goop to get a straight edge with, but tiny crevices are no problem.

If I opt for a paint mix that is just this side of runny, I can get it on and sticking before it has time to puddle and run under tape. The bargain hair dryer from JB HiFi is called it to spot-dry the edges and then once they’re sealed the rest can go on smoothly. Paint day is not the trauma it once was.