ASP Micro Hawk Build, Part 7, Mask & Paint Adventure! TIP

This wasn't an easy mask - I used my regular Scotch tape for the tube areas between the fins. 

Here it is after shooting with gloss black.

When the tape was removed, two sides were good and showed clean lines - 

The other sides weren't. 

Thought I would cheat and run a ultra fine line Sharpie down the fillet area masks - 

It looked better, but the black area ended up wide and outside of  the fillet joint.

After masking off the black fin surface, I sanded off the black ink as best I could with folded 400 grit. There was still some very slight discoloration left from the black ink.

So I cheated!

TIP: Strips of white decal paper were cut to the width of the body tube between the root edge lines. 

No clear coat was applied, I wanted the decal fix to stay very thin. A white decal patch like this will slide and transfer when soaked with no clear overcoat. The clearcoat would be added if the decal were run through a printer to seal the printer ink.

The white decal covered any leftover ink and squared up the root edges!

This type of fix doesn't always work. The white decal looked much better and straighter than my original mask. This rocket is very small and the fix isn't noticeable. The decal film remained thin without the clearcoat.

Some clear Pledge was lightly applied with a Q-tip to seal the edges.