Masking a Canopy

I just bought some Micro Mark liquid mask to try.  Seems like a pretty neat and easy way to do it.  But having not used it yet I can't comment on exactly HOW well it works.

Brian

You can check www.squadron.com, www.spruebrothers.com or www.ezmasks.com. Betweeen the  three, you should find something.

Andy

I have also tried liquid mask, but without much success...I'm sure there was a technique for using it I just was not aware of. I had looked at Squadron...I'll try the other two sources. Thanks guys.

B-58Lover wrote:

I have tediously cut Tamiya tape to make canopy and wheel masks, but I generally prefer to buy a ready-made mask for the canopy and wheels. I'm working on a couple of 1/48 Bf109's (F-6/U and an E) and I haven't seen any ready-made masks for them. Does anyone know where I can find masks for these kits? Or, if you do your own canopy and wheel masking, what is your preferred method/materials? Regards.

I use Bare Metal Foil.  Apply the foil to each canopy panel and burnish with a Q-Tip or very gently with a toothpick or the end of a paint brush handle.  The foil needs to be snug where the "glass" meets the frame.

Using a brand new No. 11 hobby knife blade, carefully scribe the foil along the frame and lift.

I've tried doing the same thing with Tamiya tape, but it requires too much pressure to cut through, and will mar the clear styrene.  The blade is also more likely to slip under the increased pressure and put a disasterous gouge right through the middle of the window.

Bruce

I'm fairly new to the hobby & feel your pain.  I've struggled with the last few canopies that I've painted.  For each one, I've tried different methods.  I tried Bare Metal Foil & had some bleeds, guess I didn't burnish it down enough.  It was difficult to make it stay in place despite its tacky backing.  Once removed, alot of the glue remained & was difficult to clean.  I then tried Swanny's method of cutting narrow strips of masking tape around the frames.  This turned out even worse than the BMF.  I must be doing something wrong.

I am now working on Hasegawa's P-40N & tried a new method.  I used plain old scotch tape for each window panel.  It is time consuming, but the results came out GREAT.  I simply placed a piece of scotch tape on a window pane, burnished it with a Qtip & made sure there weren't any loose edges.  I then used a new Xacto #11 blade & cut around the frame.  Because the tape is thin, it didn't require alot of pressure to cut thru it.  Of course you need to be careful when cutting, you do not want to damage your clear part.  Once the frame was cut, I used tweezers to remove the excess tape & got very nice sharp/clean edges.

I shot MM enamel on top & had no bleeds.  I then put dull coat on top.  I was able to safely peel the scotch tape off using a toothpick & scraping towards the inside.  Eventually, you get a lip & you can peel it with your fingers.  When I used tweezers, the tape would sometimes tear.

I'm very happy with the scotch tape method.  Its readily available & cheap.  It sticks well too.  I had a few tiny pieces of glue left over, but they were easily removed by getting a piece of tape and tamping it over the excess glue.

I read on a few forums that other modelers had problems with scotch tape if it was left on for too long.  I had mine on for about 7 days,  I had no problems removing it.

Good luck with your canopy!

Lots of good ideas. Thank you all for the input. I did find masks for the Bf109 E and F at Sprue Brothers. They had a pretty large inventory ... I'll definitely put them on my browser "favorites" list.

I will try both the BMF and scotch tape approaches ... see if I have the knack for either.

Thanks again.

Bill

I use the swanny method.

http://www.swannysmodels.com/Canopies.html

I see you are in Indy. Did the pic in your avatar come from Grissom AFB?

Wow .... great article. Thanks for passing it along!

Yes, the B-58 is the one at the Grissom museum. I was stationed there in 1967 to 1968 when it was Bunker Hill and the 58's were on alert there along with the KC-135's. I was in the Air Police, so I only got to guard them, but we did get to watch them take off at sunset with the four-stage afterburners lit ... really a sight!

Bill

To cool. I've got some shots of that very same plane, most of them with my son in the foreground. The phantom cockpit he is sitting in in my avatar is in the museum. I lived in the old base housing in 2000-02. Place got REAL busy during 911.

Swanny's articles are very informative! However, just one small thing that I found when reading that canopy masking article is he goes on saying to paint the INSIDE of the canopy frames but mentioned nothing regarding masking them, like you would to the outside as stated in his article. Im sure its obvious that one would have to mask the inside of the canopy if your going to be spraying the inner frames. Im just reading too much into things i guess?

Painting the insides of the canopy frames is a bit of an optical illusion.

If you follow Swanny's article... what you should do, after masking your canopy off nicely... is paint outside of the canopy....the interior color first. Then only do you paint the exterior. 

This way the illusion is created in that the inside has been appears to have been painted. As the lowest layer of paint is the interior color, and the outermost is the base color for your camo, or whatever. 

Hope this helps...

 

I too had to read closely to get the inside canopy idea that Tacan refers to. It makes the illusion real though! Be sure to bookmark Swanny's page and also check HawkeyeHobbies blog site. Many useful tips there too!

Culling many of the above tips.....I never had good luck with liquid masks, but that's just me. Generally, the thinner the mask with a SHARP #11 blade yields good results with a steady hand and good burnishing.