Small Civilian Aircraft- And Foil!

Oh My,

This could take all day if you let it. I am going to make it short and sweet. Foil is a Wonderful thing. BUT there places on a bird that are almost impossible to foil. There is a creme based polish that will work. It’s used for Picture Frames when restoring or antiquing one.

As you apply this stuff you rub it in place. The more you rub the shinier it gets!

I have used it on a whole aircraft. I thought I was messing up, but after two years on the " Shelf of Doom" I took that B-52 ( REVELL’S old small one) down and rubbed the Be-jaysus out of it. Talk about a shine ! Clearcoated it and gave it to my retired " BUFF" pilot neighbor.

Now for those Apaches, Conairs and Taylorcrafts and Cessna’s use the thinnest foil you can. Small pieces, thinly overlaping at the panel lines. Very thinly!

Burnish with a Soft clean " T " shirt type rag. CLEAN, I might add. No fabric softener on it. This leaves a weird unseen finish in spots! Now take the thinnest shiniest sheet you can. Figure where you are going to start. NEVER, have a panel seam come up in the middle of another panel.

Now on Cowlings you can get a nice smooth finish. Just make your pieces smaller and like I said burnish them with some kind of aluminum handle or even, Believe it or not, in a tiny space a piece of aluminum tubing will work too!

It seems to transfer something. Don’t ask me, I only have seen the results. Talk about a different shine. And surely a beautiful one that won’t go away! I learned this on a project involving a 1/16 scale 57-Chevy! The bumpers had bad spots where the sprue was attached and a seam that’s not on the real car! Well, after I burnished the foil in that area, was I surprised. I did it because I Mis-Placed my wood Burnishing tool.

Now, it’s S.O.P for all my civvy A/C. Now the last thing. Put the decals on and make sure to trim close to the letters or stripes. Then Clear-Coat the whole aircraft in Clear Gloss and do not handle it for a week. Really ! If you choose not to clear coat, Just be careful around the decals and as it Ages, You can polish it up to look like new again!

Personally I have had good luck with Alclad. Their polished aluminum can really display a polished finish. And I have learned pre-shading tricks to make panel variations. Very few modern lightplanes have natural aluminum finishes anymore. But I build lots of D-18s, about my favorite small civil aircraft. Except for the Ercoupe, of course (wish I could get my hands on an Ercoupe kit! I’d even go for building the old Comet balsa kit but those go for big bucks. Did get ahold of a jpg of the comet plans, though. Some time I will build it (cover with sheet styrene, of course).

For touchup of small defects in aluminum surface, I love the Molatow pens.

intrigied by that aluminum burnishing method tanker-builder. Will try that out on my next Thunderbuild build.

I’m with Don - this is the Hasegawa 1/200 DC-3. I used alclad airframe aluminum ALC119 - super shiny

And she’s tiny!

What cream based product are you refering to? I tried Rub and Buff and no matter how much I rubbed it, it would still come off on my fingers.

Aha;

That’s it! Now one thing I didn’t mention is I scrubbed the plane with WHITE Toothpaste before applying the Rub-n-Buff. Also used their recommended clearcoat. If it gets old it will continue to come off. It’s also like oil paint. It takes some time to dry solid.

Okay;

You’ve convinced me. I will have to try that stuff!

And decals did not stick to it very well.

I have a Monogram P-38 sitting on the shelf of doom that I used Rub n Buff silver on. I was able to vary the finish of various panels by the amount of buffing I did. Don’t recall it coming off on my fingers, and I can’t attest to its hardness since it was applied 10 years or so ago. I do like the look, though.

Hi Freem;

Now here’s something that may surprise you. Even though it’s been some time. I just bet you might be able to dust and polish it once again. The heat generated when buffing seems to bring it alive again–Sometimes!!