How to hold a plane canopy while spray painting?

Whole plane or just the canopy?

Confused on what the answer you're looking for as Don already mentioned.

I mask my canopy before painting off the sprue. Then I place my canopy on sticky tape to paint.

Double sided sticky tape, yes. Or I take a wood dowel, put a blob of blue tack on the top of it, and squish the canopy on the blue tack, then hold the whole thing with a clothes pin while it dries.

pic:

Heh - I use painter's tape sticky side up with pieces of tape on ends to hold it down. Yeah - that's a lazy way to do it. LOL!

Wood dowel + blue tack

Wood dowel and a loop of tape inside the canopy,

Sorry guys, don't know why I said canopy. I meant to say how do I hold the entire fuselage while painting. Thanks.

But since we are already talking about canopies; I masked the exterior sections of it and plan to spray just the exterior side of the canopy; is that recommended?

Yes, but spay the interior color first, then the exterior camp color. That way the interior color shows through.

For the whole plane, it depends on the particular model.  Also, jet vs prop.  For prop planes I often drill out prop mounting hole so it goes a bit further into model.  Then use appropiate size brass rod.  

If worse comes to worse, and I cannot find any way to mount a "handle" I finish all but one wing during first painting, holding by the wing.  Then, after dry, paint other wing.  This works well with flat finishes.  For glossy finishes you may need to mask fuselage near wing to prevent overspray from dulling first finish.

I prop my aircraft by the wings using blocks of sort or the like. I usually paint the bottom first before painting the topside.

Well my wings are not attached to the fuselage yet; I think I want to paint them separately. I think I will use some wooden sticks or sprues to hold the pieces.

Any advice on how to mask the interior side of the canopy with tape? It seems to be a tricky place to cut the tape to shape.

lightsunglasses

Well my wings are not attached to the fuselage yet; I think I want to paint them separately. I think I will use some wooden sticks or sprues to hold the pieces.

Any advice on how to mask the interior side of the canopy with tape? It seems to be a tricky place to cut the tape to shape.

You can do what I suggested a few posts up, otherwise you'll just have to wing it masking wise. A trick I'll do is buy the Eduard pre cut masks for the exterior, then trace the outline on some tamiya tape and cut it out for the inside panel. ...Or, Montex masks makes interior and exterior canopy masks for alot of kits in various scales. 

Here's my inside masks technique:

You can use white glue to hold a dowel to the part. It is pretty secure and tears off (with the glue staying on the dowel) easily.