"Soft" edges on color transition

Travis,

It depends on how soft you want the demarcation lines to be. Spraying straight down on the mask edge will give you less bleed. Spraying away from the edge will give an even harder line. I'd be careful about spraying toward the edge. The air flow may lift the mask, allowig more paint to bypass the mask.

Hope this helps.

This is what I've done in past; I've cut out the shape of the mask then I take small pieces of low tack masking tape, roll them over into little tube shapes then attached them to the underside of the mask. I put the rolled pieces of tape about 3/16" away from the edge of the mask. I also put many pieces along the edge of the mask about a 1/4" apart.When you tape the mask to the model after you press down it should stay up a little bit, maybe a 1/16" or so. I read this in one of my model books years ago and I've done this on many a model, even in 1/72 scale with great results. It is somewhat time consuming but it does work. I still do it this way due to fact that I still don't have a real airbrush.

If you have even a modest airbrush, such as the Paasche H single action, you should be able to freehand your pattern. Just place the tip way close to the surface and spray carefully. It'll take a lot less time in the long run than cutting and taping masks and worrying about the paper lifting too much or the paint bleeding. Anglei into the color you're spraying and there's less chance of excess overspray.

Shogun,
In years gone by when I had a Testor's A220 airbrush (not much more controllable than a rattle can), I had tried essentially the method you have described, and got inconsistent results, for exactly the reason that Aaron suggested, parts of the mask lifted more than others.

I got better results with Klem's method.  Because the edges are all fastened down, the softness of the edge transistion is pretty much dependant on how far off the surface the mask is.

On the other hand, after updgrading to a Paasche H, I easily I did a 1/35 tank camo freehand.  As Ajlafleche says, get the tip in close and carefully spray. 

 

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for the information on this.  I have been real nervous about this leading up to a couple of projects I have on the bench (I am pretty new to the hobby)  I found a really low end partially completed model of a P-40 fighter at a garage sale this weekend.  I will use that as practice foder. 

I have about a 15 year old Paasche type H airbrush that has hardly been used.  Is that the same Paasche H you are referencing?  If so what size tip are you using for this work?  Thanks again everyone.

Travis

Shogun wrote:

I have about a 15 year old Paasche type H airbrush that has hardly been used.  Is that the same Paasche H you are referencing?  If so what size tip are you using for this work?

That would be the one, simple and reliable.  Paasche has been making the Model H for the better part of century.  They have no.1, no.3, and no.5 tips for narraw, medium, and wide coverage.  I usually use the no.1 tip.  With that tip, one can easily spray a line that is somewhere between an 1/16 and 1/8 of an inch wide.  I've never experimented with seeing how narrow one can get with the no.3 tip.

Just experiment with geting the proper paint consistency and air pressure and move the tip in close to the surface.  You'll be amazed at what you can do. 

 

Shogun,

I've not used a mask in ages.  I freehand all my camo patterns, like some of the other posters have said.  You have to be careful when you're getting close to the surface of the model that you're not spraying too hard.  If you've got a regulator on your air source, make sure to turn it down a bit.

I've also found if I'm not completely satisfied with how tight the pattern is, you can keep switching between the two colors and spraying the edges til the pattern tightens up.  It's always worked for me!

I take a brown paper bag like you get at the grocery store and instead of cutting the mask, I tear the paper into the shapes I need.  This works well (for me) doing camo patterns on armor which are usually done in the field and can be pretty rough to start with; probably a little too rough for aircraft.