Hi,
Does anyone know of a paint mask that would help in painting Frances Gabreski’s P-47D as it was marked in July, 1944? I would need it in 1/32 scale. My airbrushing skills are not near good enough to try his camo pattern. Any help or info would be appreciated.
emo07
I don’t know of any commercially produced mask you can buy for this, but I built Gabreski’s Thunderbolt last year in 1/72. I used the painting diagram and enlarged the scheme on a photocopier, cut it out and attached it with doubled up masking tape to lift it slightly off the surface. Then I airbrushed, being careful to keep the spray close to perpendicular, to minimize paint creeping under the mask. I will attempt to post photos.
Looks like the pictures worked. Thanks to my daughter Ashley for taking the photos on the spur of the moment. She’s a good kid.
I have the 1/48 scale kit and had the same question. How do you know what to set the copier at to enlarge kit instructions?
I saw similar topic not long ago but let me add my 5c to this sibject.
Copiers settings are not accurate - so if I would do it I would not rely on copier settings and rather set a reference length and stick to it.
The best refernece length is a wing span. Get a wing span of your model (usually on the box) and try to get the copier to fit into this measurement.
One more thing: usually those masks are just 2D representation of a a 3D surface - so do not count on it as an accurate exact copy for the mask - you will have to interpolate a bit between real points on the airplane to fit correctly with your masks.
Greg
To add to Gregg’s comments. You may want to use a thin snake of Blue Tack or Silly Putty to hold the mask down. Since this may cause the area to be larger, reduce the mask accordingly. With this method you shouldn’t have creep under the mask. The Silly Putty helps to hold the mask over various contours of the model.
Mike T.
Thanks, guys, for your input. I did enlarge painting diagram to the right size and I will cut the marking out and use these. Again, thanks,
emo07
I agree with the subsequent comments here about enlarging with a copier. If I remember correctly, I used the engine nacelle as a reference point and manipulated the camouflage diagram until it corresponded with the nacelle, then did the whole pattern.
And, yes, you will have to do some tweaking to get 2D paper papers to fit a 3D model. It is fussy, time consuming work, and I remember being thoroughly disgruntled by it, but it can work if you stick to it. I had the instruction sheet from the 1/48 model, too, borrowed from a friend, but the painting diagrams were smaller than 1/72, so I still had to enlarge them to fit the acutal model.
Also, I did try to use some of that ticky-tacky poster stuff to hold the masks at first (I thought 1/72 might be too small for tape), and found it left a slight shadow on the painted surface (it’s still somewhat visible if you look closely at the real model). Maybe silly-putty would work better and not leave the shadow. I used Testor’s MM paint, thinned with Floquil dio-sol and glaze for airbrushing; so there must have been some kind of reaction. Nevertheless, this is labor-intensive, so I wasn’t about to do it over.
Good luck with your project.