I discovered this tonight by accident I guess. While masking the canopy on my P-40 for the P-40 GB I figured out how a desk lamp can help to spot the panel lines on a canopy.
I use a swing arm lamp over my paint table with a 100 watt equivalent fluorescent lamp in it. Basically hold your model under your lamp with it kind of in front of it and closer to you than the lamp is.
Like this-
If you do this it will “backlight” through the masking tape and make the canopy frame show up pretty well, making it a lot easier to cut it out. I used Tamiya masking tape, not sure how well it would work with other tapes. I’m sure blue painter’s tape wouldn’t work too well.
Anyway, a close-up pic of the effect I’m talking about-
Some of y’all might already know this, but I just stumbled on it so thought I’d share with those less experienced ones like myself.
Bruce, that’s a forehead slapper. Wish I had thought of it first. It’s a well known phenomenon with illuminated sign. You can route the words on the surface and beam a light down one edge to make the letters glow. Of course this would work with canopies in much the same fashion.
Thanks for posting the idea. If only knife skill could be bought by the bottle!
