Amazing Finishes from Steve Bradley

Once in a while there's some standout work that should be recognized!
Here's some beautiful finishing by Steve Bradley.
You can see the rest of his work on TRF HERE

From his TRF post:
"Thank you, it was fun now that it's over. I forgot to mention, the little diamonds at the top of the nose are decals from the kit. I didn't know if they would fit in or not, but they're a real heavy black and it was no problem. Hard to tell the difference.

I use tape (Tamiya, mostly) for the masking. I haven't run across a frisket (I only have the conventional flat surface type at hand) that will stay down on curved surfaces. I'm sure they make a flexible frisket, I just haven't gotten my hands on any of it yet. But, I will be trying it.

I wish I had shot some photos of that thing in it's various stages of taping. Hideous. I find it's really easy to go "tape blind," which is kinda what happened. I get so much tape (of different colors) on it, that it's sometimes hard to remember where you're at on the rocket and what should be left open or what you've forgotten.

With rattle cans, the hard part is getting all that tape off without marring what you've just put on. I usually wait 2 to 3 hours so the edges are still soft and won't pull up (I have a heavy hand with rattle can paint) and mask/layer it so that everything pulls up from the bottom.
I fold the tape ends over so as to at least have a starting point to pull from. Otherwise, you're looking at a wrestling match with tape that you're not going to win."