Estes Little Joe 1, #7255, Build Part 16, A Tricky Mask

The outside edges of the three silver fins get a orange stripe. After the sprayed decal didn't work I had to go back and mask it.

I used the decal backing for a width template. Scotch tape was hit with a wide black Sharpie. Strips were cut on a glass sheet.

On the left shows masking tape set over the previous Scotch tape edge mask.

On the right is the orange strip left after pulling the tape.

Now for the difficult mask -
There is a thin black line on the leading edges of all the fins. When I built the Dr. Zooch Mercury Little Joe, I used a black marker to get this line. I carefully ran it down the root edge. The results were okay for a sport model. This build goes back to Estes.

Scotch tape hit with a marker is used again. The picture shows the narrow tape line for the black edge.

Brown paper masking tape goes over this, plastic grocery bag pieces cover everything else.
Before spraying, look carefully over the masked areas to be sure there are no open gaps. If there are any gaps, the paint will find it's way in and on the model.








Whew!
All four fins turned out well, clean and sharp.