Painting an RC Warbird, Part 3
Lane Crabtree has been detailing how he painted his CARF Models P-51. He started by documenting how he primed and painted the silver and olive drab, and final week he masked the canopy and created the stars and bars. In this installment, Lane applies squadron markings and the checkerboard sample.
Now comes the Squadron ID alpha-numerics on both facet of the S&B. These are what I name single-stage paint masks as they solely require one coloration to finish.
Well, yet another boo-boo as I missed one other photograph earlier than portray the black. But you possibly can see the paint masks in place and the masking throughout them.
Speaking of boo-boo’s, made one right here. The paint peeled up with the masks and left a torn edge in a few locations. No downside. I allow them to dry completely and touched them up later with a paint brush. But, like I like to recommend, take away the masks CAREFULLY and save your self some touch-up work.
See, no huge deal. Peeling downside solved.
Jumping forward right here, however a view of the progress and with the rudder painted Identification Yellow MS 33538 and with horizontal tails painted with white flashes. The rudder on the CARF P-51 detaches simply with a protracted rod hinge pin. So I painted it off the mannequin to save lots of masking work.
One merchandise I left until this time is the overlap of the OD Shade 41 on the fuselage wing fillet. Required some cautious format of the masking tape and full masking of the mannequin. I even used an previous towel to masks the aft finish.
I don’t want to point out you the paint with masking nonetheless on, you get the thought. But right here’s the ultimate results of portray the wing fillet. Take your time whereas masking and you should have a clean line from fore to aft. White flash on the wing matches up with the invasion stripe on the wing backside. A bit of out of sequence, I admit, since we haven’t mentioned portray the wing but.
Now to one of the crucial tough elements of the entire paint job – the checker board. Callie included a paint masks for this, however I need to admit I couldn’t make any sense of the way it was presupposed to work. So, I went “old fashioned” and laid it out with a divider, scale, fantastic line felt marker, and a few kevlar fishing line. One of the tough issues to do on a spherical fuselage nostril is making the strains vertical all the best way round. To do that, I made the bottom coloration (yellow) about 4 inches extensive fore to aft, measured off the flat spot on the nostril. The kevlar line got here in useful once more for marking across the backside of the nostril. After this, I masked off the remainder of the fuselage. For this job and the spinner as properly, I used rattle cans (Valspar spray paint) of vivid yellow and vivid purple. One downside you want to concentrate on is that this paint wants a few week to dry to the purpose you possibly can masks over it. Masking too quickly will trigger the paint to mush and also you’ll should sand all of it off and start anew. If you possibly can place the mannequin exterior, safely, for a number of hours every day, increased temps will treatment the paint quicker. I put the fuselage within the camper shell on a heat
day to behave as an incubator to hurry issues up. It labored.
I’ll skip the masking as we’ve lined that sufficient. But, you possibly can see that the paint line is close to completely vertical. Let this dry a LONG TIME – per week no less than.
Paint dry. Now, the laborious half. To make this look right, you want a photograph of your prototype plane. On HHH, the checkers begin and finish with particular colours across the header manifolds. And the aft checkers are barely much less extensive than the entrance ones, for some cause. Use your dividers to gage the width of every checker till you get a width that makes equal areas all the best way across the nostril. Alternating the checkers, masks off the entrance and rear rows with Green Frog Tape. I marked them to maintain them straight in my head. The ones marked yellow will stay yellow when the masking tape is eliminated. This is vital to maintain the colours within the right order. Once the tape is down tight, and you’ve got double checked it, hit it with the intense purple rattle can.
Another view of the checkers earlier than portray.
It’s purple all proper!
With the tape eliminated, watch out for one more week till the paint has dried. Rattle can paint doesn’t are inclined to peel upon tape elimination just like the latex. But, when pulling any tape up, all the time take your time.
Another view.
One final view. After paint has completely dried, CAREFULLY moist sand with 1000 or 1500 grit paper to take away the masking strains. A pleasant completion.
Remember what I stated about letting the yellow dry per week or so? Yep, that’s proper, I didn’t try this on the spinner. After masking and portray the yellow and purple, I pulled off the tape and the yellow was UGLY. Required sanding off and beginning over.
Done correctly this time, it seems to be fantastic. Later, I sanded down the spinner with 1000 – 1500 grit and clear coated with Polycrylic. Despite the fantastic grain of 1000 – 1500 grit, it cuts very quick with water. So go slowly.
Next week, Lane will present how he created the Hurry Home Honey nostril artwork, the invasion stripes, victory markings and the exhaust stains for the reproduction Rolls Royce V12 engine.
BY LANE CRABTREE
OPENER PHOTO BY NANCY ABBY; HOW TO PHOTOS BY LANE CRABTREE