I'll use a trick learned when assembling the larger Apogee Saturn V. This is a method suggested by John Pursley.
TIP: The Apogee instructions suggest using an Ultra Fine Point Sharpie to outline the black areas. This helps you get a sharp color separation line.
If you don't have patience or a steady hand, you might want to go with Tamiya tape. I wish you good luck getting the tape to settle in and out of the corrugated ribs.
The vertical lines are centered between the raised bumps on the wrap. I did a paper wrap and marked the bumps, then found the center for the vertical lines.
These were marked with pencil on all four sides.
The horizontal center line is 1 1/8" from the bottom of the wrap. I measured and made a pencil mark on each rib. Use only light pencil marks here, no ink pen - ink will bleed through any sprayed paint.
TIP: Only mark the highest point of the ribs, not down into the corrugation dips. It's easier to erase remaining pencil lines if they are only on the high points.
After you have figured out which blocks are to get the black color, practice drawing some lines over the ribs. These practice lines will be covered with paint later. Practice a few lines inside the black areas.
Build Time in next post in Part 2
Sharpie makes paint markers too and they come in water or oil based, match your base coat.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.sharpie.com/markers/art/water-based-paint/SHWaterBasedPaintBlackExtraFine
https://www.sharpie.com/markers/art/oil-based-paint/SHOilBasedPaintBlackExtraFine
I found them locally at Michaels, These are working well, just don't try to apply them against a tape mask... seep city.
-Homer
Hi Chris, Did you blog your Apogee Saturn V build? I am putting my finishing touches on the Estes 1969 model and have an Apogee kit standing by. Thanks
ReplyDeleteHi Eric,
DeleteI didn't blog the Apogee builds (I did two of them!) The Apogee kits did give me this Sharpie outline tip to keep sharper lines into the corrugations.
Thanks! For the Sharpie pen, you may want to check out the Sharpie Pro pen - you can find it in home improvement stores. They make it in a fine point (no ultra fine, though) and it has a gray tube. It is designed to write on wet and oily surfaces. Much, much "inkier" than the standard Sharpie pen and goes on a whole lot blacker without the bluish tint. I wouldn't change anything in your technique and would still only use it for the edge, but I found it to be better than the regular Sharpie. In a pinch, I bet you could do a whole section with it and it would look good. This isn't a paint pen, it just has better black ink than a regular Sharpie.
DeleteHi Eric,
DeleteI will look for the Pro pens!
Also, quick note for anyone using metric and reading the Estes printed instructions that are in the kit - the printed manual says the measurement of the horizontal line on the wrap is "1-1/8" (3.2 cm)". This is incorrect. 3.2 cm is about 1-1/4", which puts the line well above the bumps. The correct metric measurement should be around 2.85 cm. The downloaded PDF instructions have this corrected to 25mm, which I think is a bit short. The most important thing is to ensure it is the same measurement around the whole wrap, so you should probably just pick the length that works for you and stick with it.
ReplyDeleteHi Eric,
DeleteThese Saturn Vs were built for Estes and they wanted me to stick to the instructions. I did find a few mistakes and let them know about them. I will forward this note to Estes along with a few other observations. Thanks!
Hi Chris,
ReplyDeleteApologies for bumping this thread from a couple months back, but wanted to relay another technique for masking the corrugations on the wraps.
During a recent launch, the white paint on the 3rd stage wrap got messed up in a few places. I could have left it, but was determined to fix it. Since it was on the white paint, the sharpie method was not going to work. I pulled a bottle of micro mask (from same folks as micro sol) off the shelf that had been gathering dust. I had never actually tried it before. I tried a bunch of different methods, but found this to work best: Mask the white part with tape right along the black/white paint line. Liberally apply the micro mask to the black side (it will seep under the tape and into the corrugations, don’t worry about that for the moment). Once dry, run an xacto knife lightly down the line of tape to cut the micro mask in a perfectly straight line. Apply a tape mask to the black side (to keep the micro mask from pulling up in case you didn’t cut all the masking material well enough) and lift the tape on the white side. It should lift away the micro mask from the white side and leave you with a perfectly straight mask along the corrugations. I masked everything else off as normal and hit it with the white spray paint. Bottom line, ended up with perfectly straight paint line on the corrugations in a fraction of the time using the sharpie method. Will try this again on a new build in the future, but, for the cost of decent Sharpie marker, the micro mask seems like a good option for these kinds of problems. Kind of like Micro Sol – you don’t need it all the time, but when you do, it really works well.
Thanks again for your awesome blogs and your contribution to the community, really appreciate it!
Hi Eric,
DeleteThanks for writing and explaining this tip so well. This could come in handy.
I have used some of the Micro Scale products. Years back I tried the Micro Mask but didn't get good results. I probably didn't use it correctly. That's probably why I went back to the Sharpie method explained in the Apogee Saturn V DVD
I do use their solvent, when decals have to conform and fit into corrugations.
You are right when you wrote: "You don’t need it all the time, but when you do, it really works well."