I’m finishing up a Hobby Boss 1/48 F4F-4 Wildcat. I’m also attempting a new technique: painting insignia. A friend who has a stencil cutting machine scanned the kit decals and made stencils for me. The finished model will depict a Wildcat that flew off Guadalcanal in late 1942, early 1943. I was more than a little intimidated attempting this but I did meet with success. The insignia aren’t perfect but the insignia painted on these airplanes 70+ years ago weren’t perfect then either so I’m not going to couch them up. have a look, tell me what you think. Thanks.
Looks pretty good, Frank. I use my stencil cutter all the time. I’ve found that a doing star in a blue field with no surround is one of the harder ones to do becuase the tips of the stars run right to the edge of the circle.
I do think the blue is a little light for insignia blue, but it could be just the exposure of the photos.
Jeaton, after applying the stencil I sprayed the circle Tamiya flat white then laid the star cutout over the circle and sprayed Model Master Insignia Blue thinned 2/1 thinner to paint so the blue might be a little light.
Mopar, as I understand it, the stencil cutter has scanning software, so if you have a scanner/printer, you should be able to scan a kit’s decals and then import the data into the cutter and make stencils.
mississippivol, the process is easier than I thought at the outset. Applying the stencil can be tedious though, but the results are worth the effort.
I have an Airfix P-40B and a Hasegawa Bell P-400 I’ll be painting instead of decals.
Frank, a scan generates a bitmap, which is all dots. Cutters need vector files, which are lines and arcs, so there is an intermediate step done in a drawing program where the lines are drawn over the scanned bitmap file, and then that vector drawing goes to the cutter. There are some programs that claim to do this automatically but the rub is that I almost never scan anything that I like well enough to use without adjustments.
Looks fantastic. Painting them on is the only way to go, and once you’ve done it you will never go back. I made the mistake of trying some decals after I was well practiced at painting, just to keep that skill fresh. Big mistake bad decals and it looks like crap. Never again. Keep on painting them it’s much more rewarding.
John, what software application do you use to make your vector files for the cutter? Do you scan in Photoshop and import the file into Illustrator to make your vector file and that’s what goes to the cutter?
Frank, I’m a long time AutoCad user so that’s what I use. An older version of Corel Draw would be a good and fairly inexpensive vector program, it comes with Photopaint which is an image editor.
My Cameo likes dxf files, any vector program that will output those should work, and the Cameo has a vector drawing ability in its software. It can work with bitmaps for the purpose of tracing over them. My scanner software can be called from the Cameo software so it is simple to scan in directly, or you can open a saved scan image from your computer.
OK, here it is – finally completed. Hobby Boss F4F-4 Wildcat. This build is strictly Out-of-the-Box. No added ingredients. The model depicts the a Wildcat of VMF-223 Guadalcanal, 1942, flown by Capt. Marian Carl. I did try to broaden my skills with this build. A friend made stencils for me for the national insignia. The insignia on the upper and lower sides of the wings are painted, something I am going to try continue to do with future builds. The insignia on the fuselage sides are decals though. I was unsure the stencils would adhere to the compound curves of the fuselage. Solvaset did the job with the decals, every rivet and panel line shows through nicely. The underside is Model Master Neutral Grey enamel and the topside is Model Master Medium Blue enamel. The propeller and tires are painted with Tamiya Rubber Black acrylic. Everything was sealed with Testors Dullcote. Before the Dullcote I experimented with oils to age the paint and dirty up the airplane. Actually a pretty tedious job but I think the overall effect shows an airplane that was heavily used. Next up is another Cactus Air Force airplane: a Bell P-400 Airacobra. Thanks for looking in. As always, your comments and critique are welcome.
Yeah, keavdog, you hafta wonder how the landing gear could withstood the abuse of a carrier landing. The landing gear is operated manually by the pilot. Twenty-nine turns of the crank to get the gear up and 29 turns to get the gear down.
Building the kit was no big deal but the weathering was tough. I had to touch up quite a few spots because I rubbed paint off handling the model during the process.
Looks great, Frank! Little jealous. Been wanting to do stencils and paint for national markings for years. My problem is being intimidated by German balkenkruez! 3/4 of my aircraft are ww2 German
