Painting missiles and bombs

It isn't easy and depends on the shape of the bomb or missle.

It's sometimes easiest to make decals.  This works best for a straight wrap-around.  I have used white decal film, painted it and then applied.

For difficult areas, like a ring around the nose, I've tried hand-painting.  Paint the bomb, then coat it with a gloss overcoat.  For this I used enamel/lacquer base paint and clearcoat.  Then paint the ring with a brush, using water based acrylic paint.  Use a damp tooth pick, and clean up the ring.  It didn't work overly well, but the bombs looked OK in the bomb bay.  They are 1/72 scale, and a lot smaller in real life than they appear in the photo.  That tends to minimize the crudity of the paintwork!

In the photo below, I used painted decal stock for the green stripe, and hand-painted the red nose ring.

New Ware makes some paint masks for bombs; available from Hannant's in the UK, and maybe other sources as well.  I haven't tried them.

Good luck!

Tamiya vinyl tape is helpful for masking complex curves.  But I'll go decals whenever I can.  I have a set of red and black stripes of various widths. 

If just needing nose stripe, can dip in the stripe color after painting the body, wick off the excess.  When dry, dip in the body color if needed.

In the pic above, after painting the yellow, dip in red, when dry, redip in yellow to set stripe width.

Let's say the missle  is grey and the ring is brown.  Paint the area where the ring goes brown.  Cut masking tape the width of the ring.  Wrap the tape around the missle.  Paint the missle grey.

Not sure where I first saw it, but the tip I have stashed away for painting rings on bombs was to paint the bomb (or at least the ring area) the ring color.  When it was dry, put a small rubber band like those used on braces where you want the ring.  Paint the bomb the color you are going to use.  When it is dry, remove the rubber band and you should have a good ring in place.

wpwar11

Let's say the missle  is grey and the ring is brown.  Paint the area where the ring goes brown.  Cut masking tape the width of the ring.  Wrap the tape around the missle.  Paint the missle grey.

 

That's what I do too.

Oh?

Here's what I do. I chuck them in an old hand drill and take the drill and put it in the vise. Then I use a striping brush and slowly totating the handle, Which rotates the Bomb or Missile or Fuel drop tank.