Kit Supplied Masking

I'd leave the masks off until you are at the point of painting. That said, if the Future does peel off the canopy it can be easily touched up with a brush or airbrushed again to restore the shine.

Since you're in Milwaukee, you should consider visiting the IPMS RI Bong Chapter meetings. The meet

2nd Friday of the Month, 7:00pm, Water Stone Bank, 6560 South 27th st. Oak Creek, WI 53154

How long honestly depends on climate. Properly stored, you can leave them on for a good amount of time (I'm assuming you're working with an Eduard kit). Extremes of temperature or humidity can mess with things, I guess, but I've never had a problem with removing masks when the time came.

As Hawkeye says, wait as long as possible to put them on. Not always possible, of course. I used a mask on the Mosquito I built a few months ago, and masked the canopy before attaching it, which was before priming, painting, etc. It stayed on all the way through the clear coats and weathering and was among the last things to come off toward the end of the build. Probably a good week and a half. Zero problems.

Same thing with some canopy elements of Eduard's Bf 109E-7...left the windscreen and back canopy on from before priming straight through. Zero problems. And that was probably closer to three weeks.

I build super slow so my masking stays on for quite a long time, sometimes a month, two or more, I prime, paint and weather with them installed and have not had a problem removing them. This is the case with both the Eduard mask and the Parfilm ones I have used. The parafilm ones were a little harder to remove however after such a long time.

I'm a really slow builder.

I use Tamiya tape as masking for my canopies (after a future coat).  My last build was an F-4 Phantom.  I left the masking on for about 7 months with no dramas.

When i peeled it off about 3 weeks ago, the canopies still looked crystal clear.

I have another F-4 that with the masks still on - so going onto 8 months now...I'll get around to peeling them off one day, and hopefully without too much drama.

Chris

Try Parafilm M. I have always hated canopies and was never good at it. But Parafilm changed all that. It's very easy to use and makes quick work of masking canopies. beautiful results.