Tag: Masking
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Academy C118 Liftmaster – Part Two – It’s All Outside

One of the distinct advantages/failings of the 1/144th scale kit is the fact that the insides are rarely seen. Indeed, for many of the airliners there are no side windows to cope with – it is all to be done at the decal stage. I welcome this if the decals are decently printed. However, you…
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Norcanair Bristol Freighter – Part Four – Mask, Spray…

Rinse, Repeat, repeat, repeat. It’s all your own fault, you know. You chose a scheme that has more than one colour and spurned the maker’s decal sheet. You could have done it as a prototype with bare metal, a works number, and be done in time for tea. But no, you had to pick something…
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Curtiss Model 75 A-4 – Part Four – Ugly Duckling

The painting stage for some models can be a beautiful and uplifting experience. Car modellers may experience this as they apply colourful and glossy finishes. Railway modellers also have bright colours in the liveries. In the case of this Curtiss 75 the chosen palette seems to contain nothing but expired motor oil and dirt. Of…
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Bristol Mk32 Superfreighter – Part Three – Who Was That Masked Whale?

Balance it up in your mind – whether you trust the decal makers to put a product out that will look like a painted surface, or whether you can make a painted surface look like a decal. If you can fold a 2-dimansional sheet of plastic paint to conform to a 3D surface with convex…
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Hawker Hunter FGA 9 – Part Three – Two Day

Confused yet? Sit beside me at the club and prepare yourself… The second day work on the Hunter was paint; undercoat, masking, colour coats. The scheme has a hard delineation between lower and upper but soft lines on the top. The silver is Mr Color Duralumium thinned with new GGX rapid thinner. This is to…
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RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Five – Night Black

The RAF night bomber scheme is a grim sort of design. Well I guess flying 300 miles in the dark, amongst a thousand other flying bomb dumps, and through radar-directed flak is a pretty grim business anyway. With a German Chancellor at one end and Arthur Harris at the other it seems like a murderous…
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RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Four – It’s No Sin To Fill

But it’s no great honour, either… I’ve no idea if Tevye built model airplanes, but if he did, he would have been philosophical about it. For my part I accept the inevitability of gaps and defects and the need for a good fill and sand. AIrfix, on the other hand seem to have decided to…
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Vickers Viscount – Part Three – The Picture of Dorian Grey

All beautiful and serene on the stand…but up in the attic… Under three layers of masking tape and two vinyl gloves… If you can’t stand horror, do not start airbrushing your models. At some stage of the game it will all start to look like a Hammer film. You must screw your courage to the…
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US Navy Phantom II – Part Three – Repeated Masking

Sometimes I make work for myself, and sometimes people make it for me. This Airfix US Navy scheme is really quite simple – the top light gull grey and the bottom white – but the navy decided to complicate things by painting some of the flying surfaces in white as well. Indeed they also apparently…

