T Bolt
Colonel
Very nice work Andy
**** DONE: GB-49 1/48 Bf109K-4 - Favourite A/C of WWII
- Thread starter Crimea_River
- Start date
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Totalize
Tech Sergeant
Nice tight pattern on the camo work. Love it. I really like the late war Luftwaffe camo schemes. Did I say that before?
Looking forward to seeing additional progress.
Looking forward to seeing additional progress.
Great work so far Andy!
- Thread starter
- #165
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks all. I have the new old laptop up and running now and spent A LOT of time cleaning up some old mask files in anticipation of using these for the remaining national insignia in lieu of using decals. I've tried making my own Balkenkreuz masks before with so-so results and so wanted to give it another go with the simplified late war crosses and with using the Oramask 810 vinyl material. Two files I had were modified with Adobe Illustrator, one for the upper wing proportions and the other for the lower wing cross, which has the same proportions as the one for the fuselage. Cutting the masks on my Cricut Explore Air cutter gave decent results, though limitations with the knife design caused some corners to not fully connect and also some very slight curving toward the end of some of the cuts. Below are the results of my work on the weekend.
I had meant to do all the masking and painting in one go but discovered that the upper wing camo colour demarcation near the cross was incorrect and so I ended up just doing the starboard one first. The masking sequence will be shown in the next paragraphs but here is the end result of the first trial before gloss coating:
The white borders have an RLM 83 infill in this case. There's been a tiny bit of touch-up with a brush done here to fill in a nick on the white and some running under the mask along a panel line.
I'll run through the steps on the port side here. I started by making small centering marks on the wing and masks and then carefully lining up the mask for the outer boundaries and burnishing the edges. I found it useful to make the mask small as it made for easier handling. I then laid down the thin borders that represented the white areas, making sure to carefully fit these exactly along the cut edges. The inner cross shape was then added, again making sure things lined up perfectly and then the white border masks were removed and the exposed white areas sprayed.
On removal of the masks, it became clear that, despite my care, I failed to fully cover the green areas. The pic below shows a small white line that needed to be fixed and you can also see where I adjusted the RLM 83 colour demarcation line to make sure that the cross fell entirely within the green area
The white border was masked and the errant line was sprayed over with more RLM 83. The pic below shows the completed area with gloss applied.
The underside followed a similar process. This time, the white was applied with the outer border mask secured and then the 4 corner masks were applied over the freshly painted Tamiya XF-3 white. I didn't wait any longer than it took me to clean the air brush before applying the masks. The exposed center areas were then sprayed with Tamiya NATO Black.
And the finished result came out pretty good with no touch ups needed:
So, the verdict is that the crosses came out fairly well using this process. The work is time consuming and finicky in this scale but, done well, results in a superior finish over using decals. The advantages are that you can control the colours of the insignia, there is no visible decal film, and there's no fussing with silvering and using setting solutions that might mar the paint. The process did test my patience though and I may explore printing center lines on the masks using the cutter rather than doing these by hand.
I would definitely consider using this technique for 1/32 scale models. 1/48 works with simple patterns with relatively thick borders but I think using masks for the early war crosses with the thin black borders is pushing it. Swastikas are almost certainly out unless they are the single colour style. I can't see using this technique in 1/72, except for maybe roundels, though I'm sure more talented people have done it with good results.
Sorry for the long-winded and probably confusing post but hopefully this gives a little flavour for what's involved. Next will be some panel line highlighting, weathering, addition of the exhaust details and finally joining the wings to the fuselage.
Thanks again for following.
I had meant to do all the masking and painting in one go but discovered that the upper wing camo colour demarcation near the cross was incorrect and so I ended up just doing the starboard one first. The masking sequence will be shown in the next paragraphs but here is the end result of the first trial before gloss coating:
The white borders have an RLM 83 infill in this case. There's been a tiny bit of touch-up with a brush done here to fill in a nick on the white and some running under the mask along a panel line.
I'll run through the steps on the port side here. I started by making small centering marks on the wing and masks and then carefully lining up the mask for the outer boundaries and burnishing the edges. I found it useful to make the mask small as it made for easier handling. I then laid down the thin borders that represented the white areas, making sure to carefully fit these exactly along the cut edges. The inner cross shape was then added, again making sure things lined up perfectly and then the white border masks were removed and the exposed white areas sprayed.
On removal of the masks, it became clear that, despite my care, I failed to fully cover the green areas. The pic below shows a small white line that needed to be fixed and you can also see where I adjusted the RLM 83 colour demarcation line to make sure that the cross fell entirely within the green area
The white border was masked and the errant line was sprayed over with more RLM 83. The pic below shows the completed area with gloss applied.
The underside followed a similar process. This time, the white was applied with the outer border mask secured and then the 4 corner masks were applied over the freshly painted Tamiya XF-3 white. I didn't wait any longer than it took me to clean the air brush before applying the masks. The exposed center areas were then sprayed with Tamiya NATO Black.
And the finished result came out pretty good with no touch ups needed:
So, the verdict is that the crosses came out fairly well using this process. The work is time consuming and finicky in this scale but, done well, results in a superior finish over using decals. The advantages are that you can control the colours of the insignia, there is no visible decal film, and there's no fussing with silvering and using setting solutions that might mar the paint. The process did test my patience though and I may explore printing center lines on the masks using the cutter rather than doing these by hand.
I would definitely consider using this technique for 1/32 scale models. 1/48 works with simple patterns with relatively thick borders but I think using masks for the early war crosses with the thin black borders is pushing it. Swastikas are almost certainly out unless they are the single colour style. I can't see using this technique in 1/72, except for maybe roundels, though I'm sure more talented people have done it with good results.
Sorry for the long-winded and probably confusing post but hopefully this gives a little flavour for what's involved. Next will be some panel line highlighting, weathering, addition of the exhaust details and finally joining the wings to the fuselage.
Thanks again for following.
Last edited:
fubar57
General
Did some fine work there
- Thread starter
- #168
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks gents. Some close-ups of each:
Really nicely done Andy
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Certainly worked out well - great stuff Andy.
Snautzer01
Honourably banned
- 38,748
- Mar 26, 2007
Very nice
- Thread starter
- #173
Crimea_River
Marshal
You can't afford my rates. 
Well done Andy.
Lovely work so far Andy!
- Thread starter
- #177
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks all. Two things of note in the below pic of work done today. First, the exhaust stubs were installed and the deflector shroud was scratch built from brass sheet. Secondly, a dry fit of the wing showed that a bit of fill will be needed on the port wing root so I cemented on a piece of roughly cut thin styrene sheet which will be trimmed once fully secure.
Jock Tamson
Senior Airman
Looking good 
