I normally build automotive models but to keep things from getting stale, I model something different every now and then. This go around I decided to try a balsa wood P-51 Mustang. I have not modeled a plane before or anything in wood so this is all new territory for me.
As I was looking over the kit, I noticed it is only supplied with a 2 blade propeller. While trying to figure out how to add two more blades I thought it would be cool to have it look like the propeller is rotating…but I have no idea how to do this. I guess using a clear disc would work, but how would I show the ghosted “motion” of the propeller?
Has anybody on here done this before…or have any ideas how to do it?
I have seen people use an airbrush to ghost an image of the propellor blade on the clear disc. There have been a couple of articles in Finescale about this as well. I think the trick is to fade the color out in the direction of rotation.
I’ve done exactly what you’ve trying to do. Two suggestions:
(1) If you’re doing a multi-engine aircraft (e.g., a P-38 — EVERYBODY does a Lightning, sooner or later), use a circle cutter to some thin clear plastic, but cut the circles a little large and mount them NOT TOUCHING on a common axis. Now you can use a disk sander (I used my Shopsmith) to make them EXACTLY the same size. It also leaves a nice “blur” at the edge, which leads to …
(2) If you take your prize(s), mask all but where you want the blurs to occur (nominally wedges in the same number and spacing as the prop blades that aren’t going to be there) with Scotch Brand Magic Tape, spin them up (one at a time this time) on whatever you’ve got that passes for a lathe, and lightly touch with 0000 steel wool — the result, after stripping the mask off, is a first rate prop blur.
Do a search on this subject on the forum “Search the Community” search engine. It is on the right hand side of the page This subject has come up on this site before. Also, here are references I found while doing a search on FSM:
If you have a photo editing program like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or one of the shareware equivalents, here is what I do. I draw a four bladed prop (or, you could scan one). Then, I evoke the rotational blur function, which blurs it out. I set the color depth to gray scale (make it a black and white image. I then turn down the density or blackness till it is a light gray. I then print it as a decal using clear inkjet decal paper. I then put this decal on the clear plastic dish. Another option for smaller scale is to print the image on inkjet “viewgraph/transparency” foil, but that stuff is pretty thin and it is hard to keep it flat for larger circles of larger scale aircraft.
