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Painting Nose Cones


Will

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I need some suggestions on painting striped nose cones. My 1/48 Mustang has a nose that is red on the tip and the base with a yellow center. I painted the entire nose yellow, but masking seems to be a HUGE challenge due to the conical shape. It's very difficult to have tape remain parallel with the base of the nose cone. I have even tried working with tape that is about 1/32" wide, but that doesn't work well, especially when you try to mask off the tip area. Any ideas?

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What you really need, essentially, is a "conical" mask, made by interposing 2 oval shapes. However, I don't know HOW to do that.....

 

So actually, the technique you tried is probably the best. BUT, the KIND of tape you use is important. Regular masking tape/kabuki (Tamiya type) tapes want to bind when wrapped around tight conical shapes.

 

Try using (if you haven't) PLASTIC tape by 3M. You can get this in almost any hardware store/department. It comes in single/multi roll packs and is usually brightly colored. Cut it to 1/32 or smaller strips. The advantage here is that it actually stretches a bit, allowing it to conform around compound curves (like cones). It's still up to you to make sure you wrap it "parallell"; but you can do that by marking the spinner, or just using Mk1 eyeball. Do this for both the back and the front of that yellow stripe, and thin fill the gap with short thin pieces of regular tape.

 

Two tips to remember when working with plastic tape: 1) Handle it as little as possible. The heat from your hands (and the room) will combine to have the adhesive start to come off. Handle it sparingly and in a cool room, and you should have few problems. 2) When you remove it, pull it BACK on itself, and NOT "UP" (a good tip for ALL tapes). This lessens the chance of pulling up paint.

 

Short of a correctly shaped, exact fitting mask (say, from a spare spinner that you make and then transfer), this is the surest technique I've come across, even though it IS tedious! Best of luck!

 

GIL :smiley16:

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What you really need, essentially, is a "conical" mask, made by interposing 2 oval shapes. However, I don't know HOW to do that.....

 

So actually, the technique you tried is probably the best. BUT, the KIND of tape you use is important. Regular masking tape/kabuki (Tamiya type) tapes want to bind when wrapped around tight conical shapes.

 

Try using (if you haven't) PLASTIC tape by 3M. You can get this in almost any hardware store/department. It comes in single/multi roll packs and is usually brightly colored. Cut it to 1/32 or smaller strips. The advantage here is that it actually stretches a bit, allowing it to conform around compound curves (like cones). It's still up to you to make sure you wrap it "parallell"; but you can do that by marking the spinner, or just using Mk1 eyeball. Do this for both the back and the front of that yellow stripe, and thin fill the gap with short thin pieces of regular tape.

 

Two tips to remember when working with plastic tape: 1) Handle it as little as possible. The heat from your hands (and the room) will combine to have the adhesive start to come off. Handle it sparingly and in a cool room, and you should have few problems. 2) When you remove it, pull it BACK on itself, and NOT "UP" (a good tip for ALL tapes). This lessens the chance of pulling up paint.

 

Short of a correctly shaped, exact fitting mask (say, from a spare spinner that you make and then transfer), this is the surest technique I've come across, even though it IS tedious! Best of luck!

 

GIL :smiley16:

 

Thanks for the idea Gil. I really appreciate it. You're right, the Tamiya tape and the other 1/32 tape I have want to bind as you wind it around the curve.

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Second idea! This is a possible way to make that "conical" mask I mentioned above. The trick here is that you either need a spare spinner, or you need to be willing to use the one you already painted, AND you need a common circle template.

 

1) Wrap a piece of tape around the spinner. Make it wide enough to cover the "yellow stripe" you want to make. Do this at an angle so that the area is covered and the tape is NOT binding/wrinkling anywhere. Use two pieces if you need to.

 

2) Using the circle template, find the hole that best fits nearest to the BACK line of the yellow stripe (nearest the base). Place the spinner into the template hole and use a pencil to DRAW a guideline around the spinner using the template as a guide. Check the line to be sure it's parallel. Redraw if needed.

 

3) Repeat the process, with a smaller hole, for the front line.

 

4) Here's the hard part.......now take a knife with a NEW #11 blade and cut around the spinner along those guidelines.

 

5) Peel up the tape and you have your center stripe mask to transfer onto the painted spinner. If you do this ON the painted spinner (takes guts), then remove all of the tape except for the yellow center stripe. Cheers!

 

GIL :smiley16:

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That's actually a pretty cool idea. Do you think it would be possible to have the circle template act as the actual mask? For example, you stick the spinner into a hole so that the bottom 1/3 is exposed and paint it red, and then stick the spinner into a hole so that only the top 1/3 is exposed and then paint that part red next? But, I bet the template won't give you a very good seal and you'd get underspray and mess it up.

 

That would work too. My example was for trying to make a one-piece tape mask for that center stripe.

 

GIL :smiley16:

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Will, I have tried just using the circle template. It will work but you have to be VERY careful. Don't let the paint build up at the edges. You need to just mist it on slowly until it builds up.

 

Having said that, I use tape and mark it off using a circle template.

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How this sound. Paint the spinner in the lighter color. When completely dry, gloss coat or use gloss paint. Then when completely dry, cover the whole thing in liquid mask. Let this dry as well. You may even want a second coat for thickness. Then take that circle template and with a #11 blade, and put it over the cone and scribe in the boundaries of the darker colors using the appropriate holes. Remove the masking from the areas that are to be the darker color. Shoot the darker color. Remove the rest of the mask and then dull/gloss coat as necessary. You might want to lightly go over the boundaries of the remaining masking to "cut" it away from the paint that is over it to avoid pulling up the paint.

 

Its important that you not use liquid masking over dull finishes. It tends to "grab" and is very hard/impossible to completely remove. Listen to the voice of experience on this point.

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Ron,

 

That sounds like a really great technique too. I have liquid mask already! It amazes me that the topic of painting spinners of WW2 aircraft isn't talked that much in tutorials, etc. There are lots of photographs in the magazines of WW2 planes with striped spinners that are nice and crisp, but in the articles they never talk about how the builder did it.

 

Thanks again,

Will

 

 

 

 

How this sound. Paint the spinner in the lighter color. When completely dry, gloss coat or use gloss paint. Then when completely dry, cover the whole thing in liquid mask. Let this dry as well. You may even want a second coat for thickness. Then take that circle template and with a #11 blade, and put it over the cone and scribe in the boundaries of the darker colors using the appropriate holes. Remove the masking from the areas that are to be the darker color. Shoot the darker color. Remove the rest of the mask and then dull/gloss coat as necessary. You might want to lightly go over the boundaries of the remaining masking to "cut" it away from the paint that is over it to avoid pulling up the paint.

 

Its important that you not use liquid masking over dull finishes. It tends to "grab" and is very hard/impossible to completely remove. Listen to the voice of experience on this point.

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Oh yea Will.......now that we've told ya the "secrets".....we have to kill ya! :rolleyes:

 

As a friend of Ron's, I know one of his pet peeves is "ya just"; as in when you ask how to do something and the guy says "ya just.....", and leaves out 3 steps/tips/tools/techniques because HE'S familiar with all of it and assumes you can "fill in the gaps". It's an oversight and not a devious plan to keep secrets. In my experience, techniques that aren't talked about much are just assumed to be things everyone already knows! And you know about that ASSUME thing...... :smiley2: Cheers!

 

GIL :smiley16:

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The pin stripe tape I tried had the right properties (the ability to stretch, as you mentioned); but also had too much adhesive; raising the risk of removing paint and/or leaving adhesive on the part. I've found the 3M plastic tape to handle the job with the same abilites and less adhesive problems.

 

GIL :smiley16:

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The pin stripe tape I tried had the right properties (the ability to stretch, as you mentioned); but also had too much adhesive; raising the risk of removing paint and/or leaving adhesive on the part. I've found the 3M plastic tape to handle the job with the same abilites and less adhesive problems.

 

GIL :smiley16:

 

 

And after all the hard work it would really stink to have the paint pull off. That already happened to me once.

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I have less a problem with that by using enamel or lacquer rather than acrylic. Lightly scrub the spinner with a scruffy pad, wash with warm soapy water let dry then paint. You should not have adhesion problems. I never trust acrylics when I have to over mask.

I painted this V2 using this process and never had a problem.germanV2F.jpg

Edited by sumterIII
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A third possible material might be Parafilm. Just depends on your comfort level with cutting the stuff. Used with the circle template, it would probably lay down better than tape with less wrinkles. Then there's the self adhesive foil, but I won't go into that even though I've used it, as it seems not to have many allies.

 

Rick L.

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  • 3 months later...

Hi!

This is my contribution. Some weeks ago I had the same problem, after some attempts a found a solution.

 

Look the pictures bellow:

My challenge was how to paint these bombs

DSC00331cpia.jpg

 

You will need to have these materials bellow, a ruler and a cut board (I guess that it is the name in english, sorry I'm brazillian and my english is not so good yet. :D

DSC00337cpia.jpg

 

DSC00338cpia.jpg

First make some concentrical circles, I used a masking tape with 40 mm width. The circular strip that you will to use will be change according with the cone angle. If the angle is openned you going to be use a stripe with big diameter. If you need to mask the tip you don't need a stripe. Use a circle, but make a cut like shown in the picture for to ajust the shape.

DSC00339cpia.jpg

Above you can see how to remove the stripes.

DSC00341cpia.jpg

Above how to mask the cones.

DSC00342cpia.jpg

Above the masking tape applied. and bellow the bombs finnished.

DSC00343cpia.jpg

Very, very easy. Post this topic was much harder than mask the bombs. :D

 

By.

Edited by Renato
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Renato,

That's a very effective technique and I thank you very much for sharing it!

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Thank you Renato!

Looks like I will be digging out some tools to try this one!

 

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