Jinithith2's pictoral guide to scribing curved panel lines

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Techniques
1

After reading TANGO1’s post (thanks for finally making me get around to doing this), I worked for a way to rescribe the curved line on the bottom and top wingtips on my Blackbird.

oh and before I forget, this only works for rescribing raised lines, although it might work for recessed as well

here is the pictoral guide.

  1. get some thin printer paper. line paper is exceptable, but might get confusing.

  2. cut the thin paper to a convenient size and then tape it on top of the curved line]

  3. get a pencil and with the lead’s side, start gently rubbing the pencil lead across the general location of the curved line. This is what you should get:

Note: in the picture above, you see two curved lines. the outermost one is the outline of the wing, while the innermost one is the outline of the panel line.

  1. hooray! we have the curved line transfered onto paper. Now take the piece of paper off of the model.

  2. get two index cards or flat styrene sheet (I opted to use 2 index cards, but I think 1 would be fine also) and paste the thin paper onto it. for index cards, its index card + index card + thin paper. I used a gluestick for this because Elmer’s white glue is excellent at making paper wavy and I didn’t want that for this purpose.

  3. Trim the thin paper + index card thing right up to the curved line. Here is what you should get:

  1. now it is time to cut the template into a convenient size. do this in any way you wish. My template was cut to match the inner wing edges so that when the inner edges lined up, the wingtip’s curved edges would match up as well. a picture is worth a thousand words:

Note: I didn’t match the template up with the wing in this pic just to show how the outlines match

  1. now cut spots for any obstructions of the template. In my case, it was the engine.

TADA!!!

I tried this and it worked like a charm. make sure to tack the template down well and go lightly on the first few passes (go slow too, otherwise, your scriber might careen out of its path on the curve). This template works for both right and left lower wingtips, but doesn’t exactly line up on the top ones, so I will have to make a new set for the top.

hope this helped solve a few problems.

Jinithith2

2

Jin,

There is an easier way to scribe curved lines without doing all the extra tasks:

  1. Invest into an Opti-Visor or Jewelers visor. (I got mine for $5.00 online although I dont remember where.)

  2. DONT sand off the raised panel lines before scribing, Use them as your scribing guide. With practice you can do a free hand scribe just using the raised panel lines as your only guide.

  3. Look at the curved panel lines through magnifier or opti/jewelers visor take a needle and using the raised panel line as your guide, lightly trace around the contour of the panel line curvature and add a small ammount of pressure with each tracing until it forms a curved depression into the plastic, keep tracing and adding small ammounts of pressure untill you get the depth you want. Then fine tune your scribe lines with sanding or scraping off he raised lines and scrubbing out the dust. Next wash the entire part you scribed with dish soap and warm water and use a toothbrush to scrub out any remaining dust.

  4. Dont RUSH IT, work slowly and just do a little bit at a time. Most important is be patient the end results are worth it.

Here are some pictures of the rescribe I did to my Six’s lower fusalage and it’s a 100% free hand rescribe using the technique I described above. I made my own scribing needles from stuff I found around my house… sewing needles, sewing machine needles, safety pins (cut off pointed end of safety pin and sharpen), needle from a drafters compass. These things work great for scribing. Even Jewelers files can be used to scribe and I use those also. The scribe I did to the Six is not finished yet but you get the general idea.

Air Master




My Tools.


3

nice! I already tried that with disastrous results. the raised lines on the SR-71’s wingtips aren’t completely symmetrical where they should be, so in this case, the template was a must.

4

Jin, Airmaster, many thanks for sharing your techniques with me. I think I will try both and see which one suits me best.

Thanks!