Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Estes Saturn V Mask TIP

If you've ever tackled the kit, you know - 
Masking around the corrugations and tunnels on a Saturn V is difficult and somewhat confusing.

In the past I've built two of the Apogee Saturn V models. The instructions in the Apogee kit are on CD and very comprehensive.
One thing I took away from the Apogee CD instructions was this tip.

TIP: Before doing any masking - You can outline the black areas with a Ultra Fine Point Sharpie pen. Use careful placement of a short straightedge for the straight lines. This does require patience and a steady hand. This mid section probably took three hours to outline.
Follow up and widen the line with a Fine Sharpie.

The ultra fine point pen will flow well at first but can get clogged as you go. Keep a piece of paper handy to draw scribbles and clean off the tip and get back the dark black ink.

You will have to go over some lines a few times times to get an opaque black. Just do the outline edges - don't try to fill in entire black areas with the permanent Sharpie marker.

You'll still have to mask and spray everything, this just helps get cleaner color separations going in and out of the tight corrugations. Masking tapes are very hard to apply around the raised tunnels.
Don't go too thick with the outlines. Again, the ultra fine tip is only used to sharpen the color separation lines on the hard to mask corrugated wraps.

TIP: Notice the clean paper towel. You will be holding the model with many different hand positions as you outline and mask. Wrap and hold the model with fingertips on the paper towel. The white rocket body can easily be discolored from oily fingertips.

TIP: Spray the model using gloss paints. Water side decals won't stick to flat finishes. Flat finishes will really absorb dirt from handling and oily fingertips.

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