A differnt way to mask

[Toni Reynaud]

I needed to put some sort of paint job onto the wings of my Depron Wot For lookalike so that I could tell which way is up - difficult with an all white plane. I had a £2.50 rattle can of red from Aldi, so I needed a masking method. I recalled reading (many years ago) of someone using wet newspaper, so as I only wanted a basic pattern of sunburst wedges on top and bars underneath I thought, quick and handy, just the job for me, and decded to give it a try.

I measured up the sizes of the pattern on the wing tops, cut newspaper to shape, laid the pieces out and painted them with water, lifted them and placed them on the wing. The paper was a bit delicate when wet, but with a little care it worked. Being wet, it shaped to the curves and the edges stuck well to the depron.

The spraying went well except fot one piece of paper, which being a bit dry lifted at the edge and gave me a bit of under spray. Not a disaster as I only want an orientation pattern - it's not a detailed scale job.

Three or four coat of spray later, I peeled off the paper (still quite damp) and it was job done - accepable for a gash sport model sfter about half an hour's work.

[Toni Reynaud]

Masking in place, two coats of spry.

On elot of masking removed.

The underside.

The finished effort. Ignore the blue dots - they were half an hour with a blue Sharpie - too labour-intensive to be much use. Overall, I'm happy with the results of a quick and easy way to mask parts of a plane for spray painting.

[Plummet]

Interesting...

You said that the paint was an Aldi rattle can. Do you have any idea what technology/chemistry the paint is?

Plummet

[Monz]

Nice one Toni, thanks for the tips (Aldi paint too).

[Toni Reynaud]

Aldi paint - it says on the can ALKYD RESIN LAQUER.

it's OK on depron, but it melts polystyrene. Nice shiny finish when dry. As always with Aldi (and Lidl) it's a case of when it's gone it's gone. I bought one to ry and there are no more left!