Really really tiny lines

Not too sure about overseas, but over here we can get very thin coloured tape that can be used, used in the manga and similar industries.

Cutting a yellow decal into thin strips might also work.

One trick I use is to cut thin strips of masking tape. The tan colored tape. Then I paint the tape with the color that I need. This also gives the smooth canopy a real look.

That's a sweet looking pic. I'd suggest using decal film. I believe you can paint the decal film, and then cut the strips to be applied to the framing. Never done it myself (yet), so I really don't know what kind of paints to use or any other technical stuff.

The other thought I just had is to just mask off each section of straight line and spray. The trick is getting the line to uniform width. I saw a tip once where a person just put to #11 blades side by side in the same handle. This allowed him to cut extremely thin (perfectly parallel) strips for pin-striping. If you just took some tape and cut out a narrow strip in the middle, you could use that to mask the area and then just keep moving it whenever the direction of the line changed (make sense??) Come to think of it, you could also use this trick to cut the decal strips (if you went that route.

PS, if the #11 blades didn't make a line that was narrow enough, perhaps two razor blades side by side would be tighter (the flexible double-edged ones).

Good luck! Love to hear what you discover.

Murray

You could try Pactra tape too. Swanny turned me onto that solution.

Check out this topic:
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http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13476
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Regards,

-Drew

I use model railroad N gauge decal strips...they come in a variety of widths, and N gauge is itty bitty...

In fact, I keep a large amount of various colored stripes around from model railroad stuff...I use 'em for boot toppings on ship models, canopies, stripes on bombs and missiles, D-day stripes, basically all sorts of stuff that I'm too lazy to mask and paint.

Ironically, I've never used them for model railroad subjects...

Jeff Herne

Excellent: What a great variety of responses! I'm not sure what I'll do when I get around to painting my S-3A's canopy. I'm in a little rut because I like to airbrush outside my garage, where the fumes don't harm anyone, but this pesky little winter storm is just annoying here in the Northeast. Thanks everyone for taking the time to write down your thoughts.

Shamrage,

I've started using Testor's Acryl and Pollyscale because I'm indoors, and because my wife has asthma. Funny thing, whenever I spray Tamiya or anything enamel or lacquer, she knows from the opposite end of the house. When I spray the Acryl or Polly scale, she has no clue, in fact, she's actually come in and sat down and talked to me while spraying and commented that it didn't bother her. Might be an option for you to look into.

Jeff

Just last night I was getting ready to paint the cockpit windows on a 1/48 AH-64Apachie and said "Holy Cow." My saving grace was the fact that the canopy frame is raised. This allowed me to "float" the liquid mask, Micro Scale Blue, up against the edges of the ribs. This gave me the idea of using the maksing tape on canopys without raised ribs to create temporary ribs. Once the mask dries the tape can be removed and hopefully this will provide a pretty decent edge. I will be spraying this morning so I will keep everyone informed as to how it turns out.
Ed

Hey guys, I found my copy of the April 2000 issue of FSM, the one with the metallizer article. If anyone would like a copy of the article...email me at EagleTC1@aol.com with either your address or fax number and I will be happy to send it to you.
Ed

I was wondering if the modeller had first painted the yellow first, on the canopy. Then with thin strips of low tack tape, he/she masked off the yellow and sprayed the green.

Regards, Dan

QUOTE: Originally posted by orion32 My saving grace was the fact that the canopy frame is raised. This allowed me to "float" the liquid mask, Micro Scale Blue, up against the edges of the ribs. This gave me the idea of using the maksing tape on canopys without raised ribs to create temporary ribs. Once the mask dries the tape can be removed and hopefully this will provide a pretty decent edge. I will be spraying this morning so I will keep everyone informed as to how it turns out. Ed

Ed, that's a pretty good idea. A friend suggested an alternative way to perform a similar task. I was frustrated trying to brush paint the edge of a canopy because I couldn't get a nice straight edge. I didn't have an airbrush and brushing up to a masked line usually results in seepage for me. He suggested taking a sharp hobby blade and lightly scoring the plastic wher the edge of the paint was to be. When I put the paint on, it sort of 'ran' up to the scored line and didn't go past. Worked great for paint, so maybe it would work for liquid mask too? I found that it was much easier to make a straight line with the blade, than it was with the brush.

Murray

Interesting... Cool ideas for a tough problem.

boybuddho, I also thought about painting with the yellow first, then masking it off to paint the green canopy frame. Only problem is, the yellow will show through the underside of the canopy frame (from the pilot's point of view) and if the cockpit glass is positioned open, this may not look realistic. Solution would be to color the inside with the green (or whatever color) paint, and then do all of the above steps. Sounds a bit in depth to me. I hate making little things like this into a week long project!