Looking at the Peter Alway drawings, three of the HoJo fins are painted black.With the wedge taper of the fins, this is not one of the easier masks. I used my standard Scotch tape strips to mask the fin at the root edges. The tape was marked with a black marker then thin strips were cut on glass with a straightedge.
There was seven pieces of tape used.
Two on each side down the root edges.
At the front, two small pieces were angled where the leading edge tip met the body tube.
The final piece squared off the leading edge tip.
Here's the entire mask for the black paint.
Strips of masking tape covered the areas between the fins.
A square was cut from a grocery bag and covered up the exposed tube.
Before spraying the black, all the edges were burnished with a clean, sharpened dowel. The sharp dowel end was rounded over slightly with sandpaper.
Pay attention to the ends where the tape might be doubled or folded over the back end.
Are you going to hit it with another coat of white before spraying with black now that you've got the mask on?
ReplyDeleteI keep meaning to do this when painting - because it seems like such a good idea - but don't think about it most of the time.
Of course you've probably already finished this build, flown it, and are on to the next build since you post these late. So instead of "Are you going to" I should have said "Did you". Heh.
Hi Mushtang,
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven't done that spraying over the masking tape thing for years. I think it makes for a higher paint ridge when you pull up the tape.
If your underlying surface color is smooth and clean, I haven't found it necessary to spray over the tape before spraying the second color.
Then again, I'm not using brown masking tape meant for windows and walls of your home. That stuff is a "crepe" surface and has too many bumps and open areas for paint to seep under.
Actually I haven't built and flown it yet. I'm not that far ahead on this one!
I do the "paint over masking tape" thing, but I arrange the tape so I can pull it off with the paint still very wet. I discovered that doing it this way causes the paint ridge (which is still wet) to collapse without the tape edge to support it.
ReplyDelete