What type of Silly Putty is used for masking for painting Camo on Tanks

Hi there,

I woundering what was the type of Putty or Silly Putty used in the April 06 Mag. It shows the person using putty and working it into an area, so he can airbrush that color in( on his Panzer IV). I’ve tryed using my putty on a pecie of paper seeing what the drying time is, and when it drys I can’t pull it up at all like is seen in the “How to” part in the mag. What am I doing wrong here? Thanks

I don’t remember for sure, but it was probably just regular Silly Putty. Its handy enough to use, and cheap.

Silly Putty actually has a tendency to “spread out” if you leave it out for a while because of gravity.Your basic camo pattern may look different if you leave it on too long before you paint it. It MAY distort slightly. If you have trouble pulling it up off the model then you need to work it onto itself to pick up resistant areas. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, …It doesn’t have to dry. Slap it on. Paint it.(don’t flood it) Whip it off. The “whip off” factor actually depends on the type of paint and how fast it dries. Any “Silly Putty” will do. No matter the color. It works different on plastic than paper. This technique is for PLASTIC, not paper. Always experiment on the same medium as you will use when you are actually doing your project. Building plastic? Experiment on plastic. Hope this clears it up for you.

Regular Silly Putty - the type you buy in toy shops - works fine. It’s not as sticky as Blu Tac, the other main option, and thus doesn’t pull detail bits of the model off when you remove it. You can circumvent Silly Putty’s tendency to run if left on for several hours by removing it after an hour or so.If you’re spraying, especially if you’re using acrylics, that’s all the time you need.

Mind you, I have, on occasion, left it on overnight, and the Putty did run, but because the paint had already dried, that wasn’t a problem.

Cheers,

Chris.

The original pink stuff is what I use, I’m leery of the brightly colored ones staining light paint. One trick to keeping it from sagging is don’t use too heavy a layer. I’ve had it on ships 2-4 days and never had a sag. When done just wad it back up and stick it back in the egg, it lasts almost forever.

Thanks guys,
Im going to be using it on my Tiger and Elefant, so all your saying is put it on the model, form it and let if set for a min or two then paint that area. Then around a hour start to pell it off?

Yep. Only as long as it takes for the paint to dry.

And any bits of Silly Putty that stick can easily be taken off by dabbing at them with Silly Putty.

And make sure youre using “silly putty” not the putty used to fill seems and gaps in a plastic model

I agree with everyone’s reply with one addition-I opened up a fresh ‘egg’ and it repelled the MM acrylic (with Tamiya Thinner) around the edges of the Silly Putty. Quite possible that I had my paint/thinner ratio wrong, but as stated above-test it on similar material.

Thanks to all who replyed, that’ll help me out alot!

I remove the putty carefully just after airbrushing before the paint has a chance to dry , this way you can avoid the ridging and halo effect( you’ll know what I mean when you see it ) caused by the silly putty mask .

I don’t let the putty set in too much as it can flow around PE screens and small details , pulling them off after .

Do medium areas at a time allowing for full dry between

Do your touch up with a brush to any missed areas .

Here is are examples using my technique …both were airbrushed all colors .
Panther G

E-100

I use the pink stuff I find at Wally World or Target. Be careful that you don’t put it on p/e engine deck grill screens

as it will stick to the p/e screens and leave some residue that is very tough to clean up. HTH

Thanks agian to all who replyed, And spector822002 nice looking Panther and King, Im doing a Panther type G at the moment. I think I’ll try silly putty on it, and were do I find silly putty at. At my local hobby shop or some were else?