I’m not really that good at free-hand camo. At least not with the Badger 350 that I have now.
I’ve searched around for tips on using Blu-Tack, Play-doh, or Silly Putty for masking, but I still have a few questions that I haven’t found answers to:
Do these materials leave a residue on the surface? If so, how do you clean it off before applying an overlaping color or gloss clear coat so that you can apply decals then seal them with flat clear?
Do any of these materials change the color or texture of the underlying paint?
I’m mostly using Testors Model Master acrylics and sealing with Future (acrylic). Does the paint I’m using dictate in any way which masking material I’m using (for example, Play-doh seems to be water based, while Silly Putty seems to be oil based. I saw someone mention on a thread where Silly Putty repelled the Tamiya acrylic they were using, I imagine leaving an undesirable edge.
I started almost two years ago and tried wuitte few things…
Silly Putty is what I am using now for RAF aircrafts (dual colorr camo on top) and i am pretty happy with results. It worked great with enamels and just tried with various acrylics. No residue, no color change. By using this “tool” I am able to get smooth color transition.
Usually I wait at least few days to mask enamels and few hours for acrylics.
Using Tamiya masking tape I never had any problems with enamel paints but few with acrylics. You have to “soften” the glue first for acrylics
I use Silly Putty for camo. In my opinion, there is nothing like it. I even use it on lower surfaces and it has just enough tack to hang on. The big advantage of Silly Putty over tape is that it just naturally sits down into recessed panel lines - there’s no bleed-under, AND at the same time, that it doesn’t stick hard like tape, so it’s easy to reposition it. After you get it on it’s easy to change it’s shape if you don’t want as much coverage, or if you want less, and it’s a snap to go from a vertical to a horizontal surface or vice-versa. You can get a piece any size by snapping it off, or it will stretch a long way if you pull slowly in stead. Anyway as you can likely tell, I think it’s one of the best tools I have in my cupboard.
I use Handy Tac for a lot of my masking, and really like the way it allows for an adjustable soft demarcation line. By varying the diameter of the rolled piece of it, you can get anything from a very soft line to a fairly sharp one.
As far as residue, it will leave a “shadow” so to speak on uncured paint. I have found this especially with Gunze paint if not allowed to dry thoroughly, but have not had any issues with it and Tamiya acrylics. HTH! [tup]
While I haven’t even tried a camo pattern at all in the last few years, I’ve heard that silly putty is the way to go. I think my only question is where can I buy the stuff in bulk![:I]
I’d love to be able to use Silly Putty, but I haven’t been able to find it in the UK for some years now. I use Bostik White Tac, which has similar properties to Blu-Tac, but is less greasy and less sticky, and thus doesn’t leave deposits on the paint. If the aea to be masked is large, I use White Tac only for the edges of the areas to be masked, and Copydex latex glue to fill in the rest. This works like Maskol, but is easier to apply and remove, and, unlike Maskol, does what it says on the tin.
Here’s a Revell Germany 1/72 Biber bridge-laying tank, with NATO Black areas masked off with White Tac:
and here it is again, with the NATO Black and NATO Brown masked off, NATO Green sprayed, and the masking removed:
It depends which paints, and which masking materials, you use. I had problems with Blu-tac leaving residue on Humbrol enamels, even after having left them to cure for a couple of days, which is why I don’t use it as a masking material any more. It’s possible that these problems wouldn’t ocur with acrylics, since the oily base materials that Blu-tac is made from would be less likely to react with them.
I used to do freehand with my old internal mix Badger, but that was a long time ago when the models were bigger. They were bigger back then weren’t they? [%-)]
Maybe my hands were just steadier and my eyes were better. [;)]
I suffer from many of the same maladies. Thank goodness I can take the crown off the tip of the Iwata so that I can spray a really fine line before I start filling in. As for the standoff masks, I usually just hold a torn index card off the surface of the camo border while I spray. I do post shading of panel lines with an index card as well.
Interesting local for silly putty, but I’ll look into it.
Next question- How often do you have to replace the stuff? Surely after a few hits of paint, it would have to be less pliable and useable, I would think[%-)]
This is another helpful and great topic. I’m going to try to find the silly putty. I’ve been using tape and cotton. I moisten the cotton and use it mainly for tops of wings etc. Putty sounds better.
