Finishing up an Academy Mig-21 Fishbed, the one with an actual Marlin Fish decals on it. Should I spray a dull coat on the Mig? Dull coat it? Dull coat on the body, and a semi gloss coat on the decals? Any one experienced with colorful birds like these (or CAGS birds?)
Do whatever you think will look best. Colorful decals would look nice with a gloss finish. You have no one to please but yourself! Have fun with it!
I’d go semi. Unless its a navy bird (at least in the US) it wouldn’t be glossy. Most fighter are a dull, non reflective finish. But in this case, a semi would look cool.
Very often those fancy liveries that are not intended for actual operational combat can have gloss finishes. They would be repainted quickly if the aircraft were deployed to an operational unit. So for aerobatic teams, anniversary paints and the like, they may well be glossy.
However, even today’s paints, as able to stand up to weathering as never before, do weather eventually and first take on a semi-gloss appearance, especially on top surfaces more exposed to sun. So a semi-gloss finish can indeed be appropriate.
The toughest to figure out are the otherwise operational schemes that have fancy squadron logo markings. Those may well not be glossy. So one has to do some guessing here. If the markings indicate it belongs to an operational squadron, it probably is matt paint or finish.
Here’s my plan, what do you guys think? 1. Dull coat the entire aircraft, then 2. Semi gloss just the colorful decals with very very careful spraying. Maybe even masking.
Sounds like a good idea, but I would avoid masking. If you put an edge of mask over the decal, it is likely to lift the decal off.
Chuck has it, that would be one expensive way to test your masking tape for lift off problems
if you do go with a masking method,use “tweezer masks”
that is, take a flexible card or plastic, something like the clear overhead sheets from an office supply store,cut off a section, tape the side of that to a pair of postage stamp tweezers, and lay that up against your surface, spray and move it,checking for wet paint on the underside often
or you could cut out complex shapes in the sheet, taping two or three matched-up sections, and paint along those edges as you go
anything that avoids actually sticking to the decaled area