Masking

I placed this here, although it could be more general and fit anywhere, craft dependent; I'll stick with the Spitfire theme.

Anyone played with commercial masks for the camo patterns? I'm in the process of laying down a bunch of masking to create the Type 'B' pattern for my Spitfire build. Even as much 'fun' as I'm having, photo copying the instructions and cutting out shapes, I was curious if the 'masks' were available as a package? Should have known, many out there!

One site in particular that was mentioned in a Britmodler post, TopNotch. They offer a vinyl set for the Mk, V that appears to be re-usable? I got to wondering??? If I were to purchase said set, and not use them as 'masks', but either photocopy of directly apply the mask to my own tape? This way I have a pattern that is traceable to my own masking tape and will last forever. The pattern would be applicable to any 1:48 (well, most) kits.

Thoughts, Comments?

The earlier Spits are really beautiful, elegant machines.

I just go online and look for official paint diagrams and size them to fit the model; I just printed off five Spitfire Pattern B's. I'll lay Oramask over these. For bigger aircraft like the one below, I'll enlarge to size, print off just the wings and split the fuselage in half

fubar57 said:

I just go online and look for official paint diagrams and size them to fit the model; I just printed off five Spitfire Pattern B's. I'll lay Oramask over these. For bigger aircraft like the one below, I'll enlarge to size, print off just the wings and split the fuselage in half

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That's kind of my way of creating the shapes as well. However, the TopNotch (or others) masks provide the 'wrap-around' shapes for doing the fuselage patterns which are usually (for me) hard to match up when using the 2D cutouts.

I used AML masks on my Defiant in GB-37. While they were great on the wings, for curved areas and bumps, they did work but were quit stiff and to a lot of coaxing. Pretty sure the material AML uses is Oramask film or similar

fubar57 said:

I used AML masks on my Defiant in GB-37. While they were great on the wings, for curved areas and bumps, they did work but were quit stiff and to a lot of coaxing. Pretty sure the material AML uses is Oramask film or similar

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Thus my question on using these as templates to create a set using your own masking media. Stiff or not they would be ideal for tracing to your own.

I rarely buy something that I could easily produce myself. Camo masks aren't hard to do.

Like George I use the Oramask film shaped from an actual 1/48 scale print out and estimate the shaping of those parts not seen on the 2D drawing.