Earning my stripes

I did a search here, and couldn’t really find an answer. It might be in here somewhere, but I have zero skill when it comes to searching.

I recently started this build:

My problem is this…and it’s a big one.

See those gaps in the green stripes, where the crosses are?

Yup, I completely forgot about them, and now have a solid green strip, port & starboard, bow to stern.

I’m in a bit of a panic, because I’m afraid I may do some damage to the white, while trying to remove the green.

I’d be grateful for any help.

Try to only use techniques that don’t disturb the white paint around the stripes.

If you painted a thin coat, you can wet sand the green paint off.

take a square stick or square piece of sprue, cut it off at an angle, and glue some fine sanding film on there.

Dipping into water often, wet sand by going along the Green, without touching the white areas.

for the ends, glue a small circle of sanding film onto a round piece of sprue, and chuck that into a Pin Vise (drill tool), that will let you get a spot without moving around (Pin Vice + tiny sanding film is sort of a small circular sander, finger powered)

keeping your sanding films flushed off with water is key, or you will grind the green grit into your undercoat of white paint

when you have it down to a very light green, you can stop and paint the white over the area, tow or three light coats

hope this helps

Rex

You might can try using some white decal paper. Cut it to fit just that area and apply. Hopefully, it won’t be too different from the surrounding color and you won’t hurt the other decals.

I like Rex’s idea, but if it were me I would mask off the appropriate area and hit it with white primer. Then hit it with a coat of your hull white to make sure all the whites match up. I’m just lazy that way though.

Mask and paint over the green with the matching white color. This is easily done with an AB set a low pressure and spraying multiple light coats and taking your time.

call me lazy and more mellow as i age in model years but if it looks good i would just ignore it instead of possibly doing more damage. have the guys in my ipms clubs would barely recognize it as a boat and my wood ship club doesn’t build anything later than the late 1800s

Why not make your own decal and put it over the area? I understand you can buy decal paper and make your own decals these days. You can make the red cross and then just extend the horizontal line as much as you need in white on each end to cover the part of the green line you need to cover. If you are worried about the green showing through, apply a couple thin coats of white paint to the line. It won’t matter if you have minor shade variations or some minor brush strokes because you are going to cover the area with a decal. You could even mask it and hit it with an AB with white paint. Then there would be no brush strokes and it should be very smooth and a thin coating that probably wouldn’t even be be noticeably higher than the rest of the paint.

If you haven’t put the decals on yet, I would just mask off the green and put some more white on. Removing a bit as said by others would probably help.

If worse comes to worse, methyl hydrate works great to strip everything off.

It’s only that tiny little area of white beyond each wingtip of the cross you need to worry about. Just make it short.

Thanks for all the suggestions, fellas.

I first tried some red electrical tape for a cross, but it looked like someone slapped electric tape on the sode of a ship, trying to pass it off as a first-aid cross. Tacky.

I’d already been thinking about taping it off, as some suggested, before I made this thread.

Anyhow, rather than risk damaging the build, I hunted around in my big Box O’ Spare Parts and found a piece flat and big enough for a test run. (an alternate chassis for my Batmobile, white mold).

I taped it off, painted a green stripe, then let it dry a few days. I then used a Q-tip and a bit of thinned out mineral spirits.

It was slow going, but I’m happy to report there isn’t a single trace of green. It didn’t do any damage, just dulled the mold just a bit. That’s easily remedied, though.

This is the first Hasegawa I’ve ever built, so I have a small bit of concern about the compound of the molding.

I’m just going to do the non-display side first, just in case.

Again, thanks for the suggestions.