Leaderboard

I'm building the Silver Wings 1/32 scale Tiger Moth, specifically this aircraft: since it was flown by my father in 1943 during his pilot training is S Rhodesia. It presents a few problems for masking, most notably the chequerboard band on the rear fuselage (just visible behind the strut) and the large, rather unorthodox "35" on the fuselage. To do the chequered band I wrapped some thin masking tape around the fuselage having decided that a scale 4mm was about right for each square, and there are three columns. So the forward and rear masking tapes were 12mm apart. The taper on the fuselage is the tricky bit because clearly the "circumference" is going to vary. Once I'd got the positions right, I took the masking tape off and laid it on my cutting mat 12mm apart along its length. I took a picture of it: then imported the picture into the Silhouette software. This gave me the wrap around shape fairly accurately. Then I set my grid background to aid drawing to 4mm and carefully drew things out: then cut: It needed a bit of tidying up but it's ok! Next the "35"! This proved just as challenging. I used the photograph, enlarged as much as possible, again imported into Silhouette then drew some guidelines: which when the picture was taken away was something like this, though I've added the curves (drawing arcs is another ball game). Here I've selected the top half of the "3" to group all the bits, then copied, flipped and pasted below to form the whole number (and also the lower part of the "5": I always work with the drawing as large as possible to ensure accuracy with lines joining up. If you don't you'll have uncut gaps which will cause problems when you come to use the masks. The end result: Any questions or comments welcome! Max

I've done the nose of my Lightning this afternoon so recorded the masking sequence that I followed. This isn't the only way of doing it, there are shortcuts when transferring the mask to the transfer piece for instance but this is how I did this particular one today: Firstly I prepared an "empty" mask, a negative one if you like just to get its position right and to spray the background white areas ready for the roundel and the chequerboard: Then I took my transfer piece and placed it over the mask, carefully lifting it from its backing sheet onto the transfer piece. This is fiddly and needs care: The transfer piece/mask was placed over the "negative one", making sure all lined up as well as possible. Clear Frisket film makes this slightly easier but in this case I found the 6mm squares didn't stick well enough to the Frisket so moved out of alignment. Once in position the roundel centre mask and squares to be sprayed red were removed: When dry, the roundel centre mask was replaced using the register marks for accuracy. The mask for the white middle ring doesn't need to be touched. The outer ring mask is removed, this is the blue area. The chequerboards can simply be covered up with tape, no need to replace the squares individually. Then the blue is sprayed: When dry, all masks removed for the final reveal! I've never yet done chequerboards that don't need a bit of touching up: Hope this helps a little. Max