110 MODEL AVIATION
THE APRIL 2010 Slope Soaring column gave an overview of
building the short kit, and the July column covered preparing a
smooth finish on the fuselage and getting it ready to paint. In the
August issue we looked at what is available in ARF and RTF slope
sailplanes.
This month we return to our short kit finishing project, with
painting and markings. Panel lines and weathering will be covered in
the December installment.
Photographs, drawings, and paintings of prototype aircraft that
show paint schemes
come from books,
scale research
companies, and
Internet searches.
The Squadron/
Signal “In Action”
book series covers
a large number of
military aircraft.
Curtiss P-40 In
Action by Ernest
McDowell and Don Greer (ISBN 0-89747-025-7) is a great place
to start for a P-40 project and might be all the documentation you
need. To me, the definitive Warhawk modeler’s reference is P-40
Curtiss: From 1939 to 1945 by Anis El Bied and Daniel
Laurelut, published by Historie & Collections in Paris (ISBN 2-
913903-47-9).
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Slope Soaring Dave Garwood
Painting and marking a fiberglass model
Also included in this column:
• Researching and selecting
paint and markings
• Commercial marking
suggestions
Dave’s Marty Hill P-40 turns and burns
over Lake Ontario at Sterling NY. The
picture was taken by Brian Thomas of
Syracuse NY, who is a newcomer to slope
photography.
For masking, Dave uses vinyl electrical tape and Testors narrow
masking tape. Be sure to press firmly to prevent paint from
creeping under the tape. He masked and painted the spinner with
gloss white, to give the illusion of spinning.
After the detail work is masked, the remainder of the model must
be covered to keep off overspray. Newsprint is not the best
choice; ink can rub off on our hands and on the model. Brown
wrapping paper works well for covering large areas.
Dave’s Marty Hill P-40 Warhawk with a matte light-gray base,
gloss-white spinner, dark sea-blue canopy marking paint, cut-vinyl
star and numeral markings, and exhaust stack markings from
Callie Graphics. Dave Sanders taught us, “If you have canopy
markings and national insignia, it will look like a warbird.”
My brief review of that book is: comprehensive, beautifully
produced, fun to read, and highly useful for the P-40 Scale modeler.
It contains 144 side-view paintings of P-40 paint schemes and details
of 16 shark-mouth designs and 49 nose arts and unit insignia. I
obtained my copy from a used bookseller linked to Amazon.com.
Bob’s Aircraft Documentation is a rich source of three-view
drawings for panel lines and color schemes and markings. Bob Banka
10sig4.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 8/20/10 12:38 PM Page 110
offers custom services that will prepare to
order and send drawings and packs of
photographs from a walk-around of the
aircraft.
Does online research suit your fancy? I
like to start with Airliners.net, which has
tens of thousands of high-quality photos of a
huge number of civil and military aircraft.
Don’t forget about Google and Bing
search engines. Both can be set to look for
images.
Masking and Painting: With any luck, your
base color comes in a spray can. There’s no
need to break out the airbrush when a rattle
can will do.
When spraying, remember the basics;
keep your distance from the model and keep
the spray can moving. A light touch on the
nozzle and patience lead to good application
of scale paint.
Letting paint dry overnight after spraying
is a great idea. It prevents the fresh paint
from being damaged by unnecessary
handling.
For masking canopy markings, I like
vinyl tape over paper masking tape. It gives
a sharper edge, tends to allow less paint
creep under the tape, and peels off in a
cleaner manner. Be careful of aggressive
adhesive on masking materials, because they
can pull up paint—even after it has
thoroughly dried.
Test your supplies. Consider making one
or more practice panels to check spray
pattern from cans, paint coverage and decal
coverage, and performance of the masking
materials.
Take your time and work carefully.
Although most mistakes can be fixed with a
knife, to remove slight excess paint, or a
brush or toothpick, to add a little more paint,
this generally takes more time than doing it
right the first time.
Consider letting the spray paint dry
overnight before removing the masking
materials. Yes, the edges might be raised a
teensy bit more, but you won’t ding up
painted areas with tape that slipped out of
your fingers while you were peeling it off.
When removing tape, pull it sharply back
onto itself so it peels off at a sharp angle.
This is less likely to pull up base-color paint
than pulling up tape at a 90° angle.
Don’t be too hard on yourself for lack of
perfection. Plenty of full-scale warplanes
were painted and repainted in the field under
adverse conditions.
Small mistakes often seem huge on the
bench but are unnoticeable in the air. If you
slip up, simply respray the base coat and start
again in that area.
Insignia Markings: After canopy markings,
perhaps the most important detail needed to
give the impression of a scale airplane is
national insignia markings, which are often
accompanied by lettering or numerals. The
three methods I have used for markings and
lettering are decals, cut-vinyl lettering and
marking, and painting by hand with brush or
airbrush.
Decals might be the first method that
comes to mind, because some of us have
been using them since we built plastic
models. My main source for 48-inch-span
slope warbirds is Major Decals. I’ve bought
the company’s products for years at the
hobby shop, at trade shows, and from online
hobby suppliers.
Major Decals images come in both water-
slide and press-to-stick versions, and I’m
partial to the former. Some builders make
their own decals from computerized
artwork, which I have yet to learn how to
do.
Sticky-back cut-vinyl lettering and
national insignia markings are hard to beat
for good looks and ease of application. Some
aeromodelers get them from a local truck
lettering shop, order them from an online
supplier, or purchase a vinyl cutter and make
their own.
For this project, the red stars, fuselage
numerals, and exhaust stacks were made for
me by Callie Graphics.
Some markings cry out to be handpainted,
such as the frog on the tail of my
Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot air show sailplane
and the lovely figures that are often part of
nose art. Other times a modeler wants to
paint the images, for the ultimate in flat
markings that adhere better than anything
you can stick to an airframe.
If you want a color that is unavailable in
vinyl or a matte finish, painting your markings
might be the best way to go. You’ll mask your
base color with “frisket” and spray the paint
with an airbrush or a rattle can.
A cut-vinyl supplier can “reverse weed”
your lettering or markings so you can use
the cut vinyl as a mask. You’ll need to be
concerned with the aggressive adhesive
that typically comes on cut vinyl. I have
reduced the stickiness with careful
application of talcum powder. Callie
Graphics can supply paint masks cut from
special low-tack vinyl stock.
This P-40 Warhawk was one of six ordered
from Marty Hill and built to fly at the Midwest
Slope Challenge in Lucas, Kansas. For more
photos of this model, as well as P-40 paint
schemes that other aeromodelers have applied,
see the design, development, and build thread
on RCGroups. The Web site address is in the
“Sources” section.
Slope Safari Video: Dave Reese has released
Lift Ticket to Norway: a visually spectacular
saga of a three-week Slope Soaring journey.
The scenery is so striking that it sometimes
overshadows the slope-flying sequences. But
that makes the video more attractive to nonslope
fliers, thus making it more likely that
you can interest a companion in joining you
while you watch it.
“We saw more impressive scenery in this
video than in our helicopter tour of Hawaii,”
remarked one New York Slope Dog’s parents
after seeing the movie. The flying and
conversation between fliers are cool too.
Since Dave Reese and I are friends and
have flown together throughout the years, it
would be untoward of me to review the
production. Instead, please see Honorable
Wife Paula’s review in the August 2010 RC
Soaring Digest online magazine. MA
Sources:
Amazon.com
www.amazon.com
Airliners.net
www.airliners.net
Bob’s Aircraft Documentation
(714) 979-8058
www.bobsairdoc.com
Major Decals
(800) 373-8885
www.majordecals.com
Callie Graphics
(505) 281-9310
http://callie-graphics.com
Marty Hill (molder of warbird short kits)
[email protected]
RCGroups Marty Hill P-40 build and paint
thread:
www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?
t=738935&page=11
Dave Reese Productions
(831) 462-9442
www.reeseproductions.com
RC Soaring Digest
www.rcsoaringdigest.com
Dan Sampson (molder of warbird short kits)
[email protected]
League of Silent Flight
www.silentflight.org
Edition: Model Aviation - 2010/10
Page Numbers: 110,111,112
Edition: Model Aviation - 2010/10
Page Numbers: 110,111,112
110 MODEL AVIATION
THE APRIL 2010 Slope Soaring column gave an overview of
building the short kit, and the July column covered preparing a
smooth finish on the fuselage and getting it ready to paint. In the
August issue we looked at what is available in ARF and RTF slope
sailplanes.
This month we return to our short kit finishing project, with
painting and markings. Panel lines and weathering will be covered in
the December installment.
Photographs, drawings, and paintings of prototype aircraft that
show paint schemes
come from books,
scale research
companies, and
Internet searches.
The Squadron/
Signal “In Action”
book series covers
a large number of
military aircraft.
Curtiss P-40 In
Action by Ernest
McDowell and Don Greer (ISBN 0-89747-025-7) is a great place
to start for a P-40 project and might be all the documentation you
need. To me, the definitive Warhawk modeler’s reference is P-40
Curtiss: From 1939 to 1945 by Anis El Bied and Daniel
Laurelut, published by Historie & Collections in Paris (ISBN 2-
913903-47-9).
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Slope Soaring Dave Garwood
Painting and marking a fiberglass model
Also included in this column:
• Researching and selecting
paint and markings
• Commercial marking
suggestions
Dave’s Marty Hill P-40 turns and burns
over Lake Ontario at Sterling NY. The
picture was taken by Brian Thomas of
Syracuse NY, who is a newcomer to slope
photography.
For masking, Dave uses vinyl electrical tape and Testors narrow
masking tape. Be sure to press firmly to prevent paint from
creeping under the tape. He masked and painted the spinner with
gloss white, to give the illusion of spinning.
After the detail work is masked, the remainder of the model must
be covered to keep off overspray. Newsprint is not the best
choice; ink can rub off on our hands and on the model. Brown
wrapping paper works well for covering large areas.
Dave’s Marty Hill P-40 Warhawk with a matte light-gray base,
gloss-white spinner, dark sea-blue canopy marking paint, cut-vinyl
star and numeral markings, and exhaust stack markings from
Callie Graphics. Dave Sanders taught us, “If you have canopy
markings and national insignia, it will look like a warbird.”
My brief review of that book is: comprehensive, beautifully
produced, fun to read, and highly useful for the P-40 Scale modeler.
It contains 144 side-view paintings of P-40 paint schemes and details
of 16 shark-mouth designs and 49 nose arts and unit insignia. I
obtained my copy from a used bookseller linked to Amazon.com.
Bob’s Aircraft Documentation is a rich source of three-view
drawings for panel lines and color schemes and markings. Bob Banka
10sig4.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 8/20/10 12:38 PM Page 110
offers custom services that will prepare to
order and send drawings and packs of
photographs from a walk-around of the
aircraft.
Does online research suit your fancy? I
like to start with Airliners.net, which has
tens of thousands of high-quality photos of a
huge number of civil and military aircraft.
Don’t forget about Google and Bing
search engines. Both can be set to look for
images.
Masking and Painting: With any luck, your
base color comes in a spray can. There’s no
need to break out the airbrush when a rattle
can will do.
When spraying, remember the basics;
keep your distance from the model and keep
the spray can moving. A light touch on the
nozzle and patience lead to good application
of scale paint.
Letting paint dry overnight after spraying
is a great idea. It prevents the fresh paint
from being damaged by unnecessary
handling.
For masking canopy markings, I like
vinyl tape over paper masking tape. It gives
a sharper edge, tends to allow less paint
creep under the tape, and peels off in a
cleaner manner. Be careful of aggressive
adhesive on masking materials, because they
can pull up paint—even after it has
thoroughly dried.
Test your supplies. Consider making one
or more practice panels to check spray
pattern from cans, paint coverage and decal
coverage, and performance of the masking
materials.
Take your time and work carefully.
Although most mistakes can be fixed with a
knife, to remove slight excess paint, or a
brush or toothpick, to add a little more paint,
this generally takes more time than doing it
right the first time.
Consider letting the spray paint dry
overnight before removing the masking
materials. Yes, the edges might be raised a
teensy bit more, but you won’t ding up
painted areas with tape that slipped out of
your fingers while you were peeling it off.
When removing tape, pull it sharply back
onto itself so it peels off at a sharp angle.
This is less likely to pull up base-color paint
than pulling up tape at a 90° angle.
Don’t be too hard on yourself for lack of
perfection. Plenty of full-scale warplanes
were painted and repainted in the field under
adverse conditions.
Small mistakes often seem huge on the
bench but are unnoticeable in the air. If you
slip up, simply respray the base coat and start
again in that area.
Insignia Markings: After canopy markings,
perhaps the most important detail needed to
give the impression of a scale airplane is
national insignia markings, which are often
accompanied by lettering or numerals. The
three methods I have used for markings and
lettering are decals, cut-vinyl lettering and
marking, and painting by hand with brush or
airbrush.
Decals might be the first method that
comes to mind, because some of us have
been using them since we built plastic
models. My main source for 48-inch-span
slope warbirds is Major Decals. I’ve bought
the company’s products for years at the
hobby shop, at trade shows, and from online
hobby suppliers.
Major Decals images come in both water-
slide and press-to-stick versions, and I’m
partial to the former. Some builders make
their own decals from computerized
artwork, which I have yet to learn how to
do.
Sticky-back cut-vinyl lettering and
national insignia markings are hard to beat
for good looks and ease of application. Some
aeromodelers get them from a local truck
lettering shop, order them from an online
supplier, or purchase a vinyl cutter and make
their own.
For this project, the red stars, fuselage
numerals, and exhaust stacks were made for
me by Callie Graphics.
Some markings cry out to be handpainted,
such as the frog on the tail of my
Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot air show sailplane
and the lovely figures that are often part of
nose art. Other times a modeler wants to
paint the images, for the ultimate in flat
markings that adhere better than anything
you can stick to an airframe.
If you want a color that is unavailable in
vinyl or a matte finish, painting your markings
might be the best way to go. You’ll mask your
base color with “frisket” and spray the paint
with an airbrush or a rattle can.
A cut-vinyl supplier can “reverse weed”
your lettering or markings so you can use
the cut vinyl as a mask. You’ll need to be
concerned with the aggressive adhesive
that typically comes on cut vinyl. I have
reduced the stickiness with careful
application of talcum powder. Callie
Graphics can supply paint masks cut from
special low-tack vinyl stock.
This P-40 Warhawk was one of six ordered
from Marty Hill and built to fly at the Midwest
Slope Challenge in Lucas, Kansas. For more
photos of this model, as well as P-40 paint
schemes that other aeromodelers have applied,
see the design, development, and build thread
on RCGroups. The Web site address is in the
“Sources” section.
Slope Safari Video: Dave Reese has released
Lift Ticket to Norway: a visually spectacular
saga of a three-week Slope Soaring journey.
The scenery is so striking that it sometimes
overshadows the slope-flying sequences. But
that makes the video more attractive to nonslope
fliers, thus making it more likely that
you can interest a companion in joining you
while you watch it.
“We saw more impressive scenery in this
video than in our helicopter tour of Hawaii,”
remarked one New York Slope Dog’s parents
after seeing the movie. The flying and
conversation between fliers are cool too.
Since Dave Reese and I are friends and
have flown together throughout the years, it
would be untoward of me to review the
production. Instead, please see Honorable
Wife Paula’s review in the August 2010 RC
Soaring Digest online magazine. MA
Sources:
Amazon.com
www.amazon.com
Airliners.net
www.airliners.net
Bob’s Aircraft Documentation
(714) 979-8058
www.bobsairdoc.com
Major Decals
(800) 373-8885
www.majordecals.com
Callie Graphics
(505) 281-9310
http://callie-graphics.com
Marty Hill (molder of warbird short kits)
[email protected]
RCGroups Marty Hill P-40 build and paint
thread:
www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?
t=738935&page=11
Dave Reese Productions
(831) 462-9442
www.reeseproductions.com
RC Soaring Digest
www.rcsoaringdigest.com
Dan Sampson (molder of warbird short kits)
[email protected]
League of Silent Flight
www.silentflight.org
Edition: Model Aviation - 2010/10
Page Numbers: 110,111,112
110 MODEL AVIATION
THE APRIL 2010 Slope Soaring column gave an overview of
building the short kit, and the July column covered preparing a
smooth finish on the fuselage and getting it ready to paint. In the
August issue we looked at what is available in ARF and RTF slope
sailplanes.
This month we return to our short kit finishing project, with
painting and markings. Panel lines and weathering will be covered in
the December installment.
Photographs, drawings, and paintings of prototype aircraft that
show paint schemes
come from books,
scale research
companies, and
Internet searches.
The Squadron/
Signal “In Action”
book series covers
a large number of
military aircraft.
Curtiss P-40 In
Action by Ernest
McDowell and Don Greer (ISBN 0-89747-025-7) is a great place
to start for a P-40 project and might be all the documentation you
need. To me, the definitive Warhawk modeler’s reference is P-40
Curtiss: From 1939 to 1945 by Anis El Bied and Daniel
Laurelut, published by Historie & Collections in Paris (ISBN 2-
913903-47-9).
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Slope Soaring Dave Garwood
Painting and marking a fiberglass model
Also included in this column:
• Researching and selecting
paint and markings
• Commercial marking
suggestions
Dave’s Marty Hill P-40 turns and burns
over Lake Ontario at Sterling NY. The
picture was taken by Brian Thomas of
Syracuse NY, who is a newcomer to slope
photography.
For masking, Dave uses vinyl electrical tape and Testors narrow
masking tape. Be sure to press firmly to prevent paint from
creeping under the tape. He masked and painted the spinner with
gloss white, to give the illusion of spinning.
After the detail work is masked, the remainder of the model must
be covered to keep off overspray. Newsprint is not the best
choice; ink can rub off on our hands and on the model. Brown
wrapping paper works well for covering large areas.
Dave’s Marty Hill P-40 Warhawk with a matte light-gray base,
gloss-white spinner, dark sea-blue canopy marking paint, cut-vinyl
star and numeral markings, and exhaust stack markings from
Callie Graphics. Dave Sanders taught us, “If you have canopy
markings and national insignia, it will look like a warbird.”
My brief review of that book is: comprehensive, beautifully
produced, fun to read, and highly useful for the P-40 Scale modeler.
It contains 144 side-view paintings of P-40 paint schemes and details
of 16 shark-mouth designs and 49 nose arts and unit insignia. I
obtained my copy from a used bookseller linked to Amazon.com.
Bob’s Aircraft Documentation is a rich source of three-view
drawings for panel lines and color schemes and markings. Bob Banka
10sig4.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 8/20/10 12:38 PM Page 110
offers custom services that will prepare to
order and send drawings and packs of
photographs from a walk-around of the
aircraft.
Does online research suit your fancy? I
like to start with Airliners.net, which has
tens of thousands of high-quality photos of a
huge number of civil and military aircraft.
Don’t forget about Google and Bing
search engines. Both can be set to look for
images.
Masking and Painting: With any luck, your
base color comes in a spray can. There’s no
need to break out the airbrush when a rattle
can will do.
When spraying, remember the basics;
keep your distance from the model and keep
the spray can moving. A light touch on the
nozzle and patience lead to good application
of scale paint.
Letting paint dry overnight after spraying
is a great idea. It prevents the fresh paint
from being damaged by unnecessary
handling.
For masking canopy markings, I like
vinyl tape over paper masking tape. It gives
a sharper edge, tends to allow less paint
creep under the tape, and peels off in a
cleaner manner. Be careful of aggressive
adhesive on masking materials, because they
can pull up paint—even after it has
thoroughly dried.
Test your supplies. Consider making one
or more practice panels to check spray
pattern from cans, paint coverage and decal
coverage, and performance of the masking
materials.
Take your time and work carefully.
Although most mistakes can be fixed with a
knife, to remove slight excess paint, or a
brush or toothpick, to add a little more paint,
this generally takes more time than doing it
right the first time.
Consider letting the spray paint dry
overnight before removing the masking
materials. Yes, the edges might be raised a
teensy bit more, but you won’t ding up
painted areas with tape that slipped out of
your fingers while you were peeling it off.
When removing tape, pull it sharply back
onto itself so it peels off at a sharp angle.
This is less likely to pull up base-color paint
than pulling up tape at a 90° angle.
Don’t be too hard on yourself for lack of
perfection. Plenty of full-scale warplanes
were painted and repainted in the field under
adverse conditions.
Small mistakes often seem huge on the
bench but are unnoticeable in the air. If you
slip up, simply respray the base coat and start
again in that area.
Insignia Markings: After canopy markings,
perhaps the most important detail needed to
give the impression of a scale airplane is
national insignia markings, which are often
accompanied by lettering or numerals. The
three methods I have used for markings and
lettering are decals, cut-vinyl lettering and
marking, and painting by hand with brush or
airbrush.
Decals might be the first method that
comes to mind, because some of us have
been using them since we built plastic
models. My main source for 48-inch-span
slope warbirds is Major Decals. I’ve bought
the company’s products for years at the
hobby shop, at trade shows, and from online
hobby suppliers.
Major Decals images come in both water-
slide and press-to-stick versions, and I’m
partial to the former. Some builders make
their own decals from computerized
artwork, which I have yet to learn how to
do.
Sticky-back cut-vinyl lettering and
national insignia markings are hard to beat
for good looks and ease of application. Some
aeromodelers get them from a local truck
lettering shop, order them from an online
supplier, or purchase a vinyl cutter and make
their own.
For this project, the red stars, fuselage
numerals, and exhaust stacks were made for
me by Callie Graphics.
Some markings cry out to be handpainted,
such as the frog on the tail of my
Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot air show sailplane
and the lovely figures that are often part of
nose art. Other times a modeler wants to
paint the images, for the ultimate in flat
markings that adhere better than anything
you can stick to an airframe.
If you want a color that is unavailable in
vinyl or a matte finish, painting your markings
might be the best way to go. You’ll mask your
base color with “frisket” and spray the paint
with an airbrush or a rattle can.
A cut-vinyl supplier can “reverse weed”
your lettering or markings so you can use
the cut vinyl as a mask. You’ll need to be
concerned with the aggressive adhesive
that typically comes on cut vinyl. I have
reduced the stickiness with careful
application of talcum powder. Callie
Graphics can supply paint masks cut from
special low-tack vinyl stock.
This P-40 Warhawk was one of six ordered
from Marty Hill and built to fly at the Midwest
Slope Challenge in Lucas, Kansas. For more
photos of this model, as well as P-40 paint
schemes that other aeromodelers have applied,
see the design, development, and build thread
on RCGroups. The Web site address is in the
“Sources” section.
Slope Safari Video: Dave Reese has released
Lift Ticket to Norway: a visually spectacular
saga of a three-week Slope Soaring journey.
The scenery is so striking that it sometimes
overshadows the slope-flying sequences. But
that makes the video more attractive to nonslope
fliers, thus making it more likely that
you can interest a companion in joining you
while you watch it.
“We saw more impressive scenery in this
video than in our helicopter tour of Hawaii,”
remarked one New York Slope Dog’s parents
after seeing the movie. The flying and
conversation between fliers are cool too.
Since Dave Reese and I are friends and
have flown together throughout the years, it
would be untoward of me to review the
production. Instead, please see Honorable
Wife Paula’s review in the August 2010 RC
Soaring Digest online magazine. MA
Sources:
Amazon.com
www.amazon.com
Airliners.net
www.airliners.net
Bob’s Aircraft Documentation
(714) 979-8058
www.bobsairdoc.com
Major Decals
(800) 373-8885
www.majordecals.com
Callie Graphics
(505) 281-9310
http://callie-graphics.com
Marty Hill (molder of warbird short kits)
[email protected]
RCGroups Marty Hill P-40 build and paint
thread:
www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?
t=738935&page=11
Dave Reese Productions
(831) 462-9442
www.reeseproductions.com
RC Soaring Digest
www.rcsoaringdigest.com
Dan Sampson (molder of warbird short kits)
[email protected]
League of Silent Flight
www.silentflight.org
