Masking with Silly Putty?

Old thread from 08. 

I use the silly stuff all the time and it works just fine.

I use Silly Putty all the time unless I'm looking for a hard edge. It dosen't leave a residue, very easy to remove, is inexpensive and can be reused several times. You can various levels of a soft edge depending on how much you press the edges down.

Just MHO.

I've cut masks from index cards and mount them with small bits of poster putty. This raises the mask above the surface and gives you a feathered edge. You can get the same effect with rolled masking tape (the low tack blue painters tape) to hold the masks slightly above the model surface. Sometimes I make the masks freehand, other times I copy a picture or drawing of the pattern and cut that out to form the mask. Seems to work fine for me.

New to the forum.  I've been following this conversation while I've been building a Stug IV.  I decided to try the "putty masking" but couldn't find the Mig product.  I had on my table so poster mounting putty and thought, Why not.........Overall I got a great result.  On a couple of places I got bleed through, In one spot it lifted paint. In a couple of spots the putty stuck and I had to scrap it off.  

 

So overall.....poster putty works as well.......

I can give you a tip. BE CAREFUL WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had some, I was playing with it while scratch building.  Put it on my lap to play a game, when I went to work again, it was imbedded in my shorts, well, long story short... the shorts are trash.  So becarefull with that stuff.

Thanks Alan,  I can't use Silly Putty for the camo on the plane I'm doing, but I'm sure I'll find plenty of applications in the future.

Cheers,

Dave

 

 

HI Dave,

 yeah, the silly putty mask would give you a semi hard edge, depending on the thickness of the rounded putty edge and from what direction you would spray from.  I have used this on large scale figures like 1/12, 1/8, 1/6 scale to mask off parts which i do not want to get paint on, like layers of clothing, straps, weapons, shoes, anything!  so then i can airbrush the part or section i want to paint and not worry about getting any overspray on it.  Its also a great alternative to that messy liquid mask, that doesnt always come off like its supposed to.  hope this helps,

Alan

The Silly Putty method article is on this site under How-to articles, then under Painting.

DJ

Thanks for the replies,

Shortly after I made my post I found an article on this site about Silly Putty masking.  In this article the putty method didn't give a feathered edge which is what I'm looking for.  I have a Paasche H with a fine tip so I'll experiment and see if I can get acceptable results.

Andy, actually Silly Putty does not leave a residue at least when it is fresh.  When it has been handled by oily hands several times I could picture residue becoming a problem.

I might try Silly Putty in the future when a defined border between colors is desirable.

TY,

Dave

I know a lot of armor guys have used Silly Putty for camo.  I never tried it myself, although I do have a Silly Putty egg just in case.  My main concern would be for any oily residue messing up subsequent layers of paint.  I think the advice to experiment first is good advice.  I would also add that you should experiment as close to the real thing as possible, i.e. do some sample camo on styrene plastic using the same colors and pattern that you are intending to use on your actual model.

Andy

Frankly, I would never use this. I learned to use an airbrush to get super fine feathered edge, even with a modest (under $50 brush). But if you fel the need to use silly putty and don't waht to ris a good build, practice on a junker or sheet stock or even a cardboard box.