Masking Techniques For Laying Out Underwing Edging.

[Chris Johnson]

As I 'edge' closer to my forthcoming Snipe build, I started wondering how you fellows mask off your underwing edging. It's very narrow in 1/32 scale and requires exact masking to ensure clean, even widths and curves. I have little doubt that I've been making the task more difficult than need be up to this juncture.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Chris

[Chris Johnson]

Surprisingly enough; that's the way I've been doing it too.

Cheers,

Chris

[RAGIII]

As I 'edge' closer to my forthcoming Snipe build, I started wondering how you fellows mask off your underwing edging. It's very narrow in 1/32 scale and requires exact masking to ensure clean, even widths and curves. I have little doubt that I've been making the task more difficult than need be up to this juncture.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Chris

Chris,
By the sound of it you are doing it right! I am Looking forward to seeing you tackle the Snipe! IMHO, up near the TOP of the list in engineering of WNW kits. I am sure you will not only enjoy the build but nail the whole lo0k of the Snipe!
RAGIII

[Des]

Straight edges with a straight piece of 6mm Tamiya tape (any wider and you may not be able to follow any subtle curves), curves either freehand or cut from wide tape. Once you have the outer curve pretty close cut away the inside back 'corner' so that you can again make subtle adjustments, then backfill the centre of the wing with tape and paper as required. This of course be made much simpler by making a pattern by tracing around the edge of the wing before you assemble everything.

Ditto for me too Chris, I do exactly the same as Justin.

Des.

[Vickers]

Hey Chris,

Looks like the edging technique is well-covered, so I thought I'd chime in on a way to quickly slice tape in uniform widths for wing tapes/rib highlights & pre-shading. I spent a lot of time with rulers and T-squares prior to alighting upon the method of simply gluing two blades together with a bit of plastic card between them (whatever thickness is needed between the blade tips for the scale width desired:

[Chris Johnson]

I'm definitely going to try that Vickers. It sure beats my Mk. I eyeball. Thanks for posting the image too, it always helps to see exactly how modellers do things.

Cheers,

Chris

[Vickers]

Sure thing, Chris!  I'm going to make another one for the D.VII Group Build, but this time I'm going to use a large semicircle of plastic sticking out the top for better control. The first one I made (in the photo) handled a bit like an off-road vehicle even along the edge of a metal T-square.

[BigBlue]

Chris,

It sounds like you have a viable game plan, but for diversity's sake I'll tell you how I handled it on my Snipe build.  If I am reading the thread correctly, I went the opposite way: I first painted the edge color, masked it off using 1 mm tape, and then proceeded to spray the main CDL color.  The thin tape was reasonably easy to conform to the curves, and I sealed off the outer edge with a coat of masking liquid.

I had one or two touch ups to deal with due to my not getting the tape fully set, but nothing too tricky.

Chris