Hi everyone

How do you all mask wheel wells?

I always paint the wheel wells etc first before i spray the top coat on and usually use wet tissue paper to mask them. however i decided this time that I would use plasticene to do it, and I am now in the situation that the wheel well is full of little bits of plasticene that I can't get out

any ideas please??

Plasticine is oil based. Perhaps you could get it to wash away by using thinners to dissolve it? You may end up having to repaint.

Plasticine? I thought you made porters out of them.

I've had decent luck with the wet tissue paper over the course of a couple of models. My latest disasters hover are on a large missile bay on my F-102, it seems too large for the wet tissue, there's almost no place to stick tape around the egdes. And don't get me started on masking the canopy....

You can also make gardens, apparently.

Jessie, i've painted it using alclad, would that be affected by thinners?

Mark, i usually use wet tissue paper, don't know why i chanegd this time, but i know i won't in future. I've always found that i can fill some quite big spaces with the tissue paper, just need a lot of it!

Now I'm not 100% certain about this, so please don't blame me if it just gets more messed up, but would it be possible to "pick up" those remaining pieces with another piece of plasticene? That works at least with blu-tac and white-tac. Though blu-tac doesn't have much of a habit of sticking to surface, it mainly just leaves bits left behind every now and then...

But for the initial question, I usually cover the edges of wheel wells with masking tape, then fill in the centers with more masking tape, blu-tac, or a combination of both. I haven't tried that wet tissue trick, but I'm starting to think it could work quite well combined with the edges done with tape. Best of worlds: neat edges, easy filling of the centers!

Thanks, but i've tried picking it with the plasticene and it's not that good

I'm currently picking at it with an old pen lid! lol

I use small pieces of soft spongy foam, and just stuff them in . . . . .



It's really easy to pull them out once the paint is dry, and 0nce you get the hang of really filling the wells there is virtually no touching up afterwards.

Cheers, D

Toothpics may help, or an old dental probe to get into the really tight corners.

Well you learn something everyday. Never heard of plasticine outside of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Didn't know it was actually what we call modeling clay.

OK, D where do you get the foam? I've seen a couple of other modelers use it.

any foam will do, doesn't have to be special.

You can pick it up from craft stores or fabric supplies, it's the stuff that you use to stuff cushions.

You guys are making it entirely to hard just mask and paint them after the body is painted I use foam once in a great while for intakes

For masking gear bays, I use kneaded eraser since it is not as sticky as silly putty, and either fill the bay entirely, and use a sculpting tool to get a neat edge, or place the landing gear doors over the top of the eraser. This is useful when doing markings like invasion stripes on allied aircraft. I tried the foam, but I had issues with bleeding colors on the edges. This is a multi-use tool, as I also use it to hold parts for painting, as well as masking off camo patterns. I usually pick up a few from a local craft store, and they are no more then $2 a piece there.

http://www.amazon.com/Prismacolor-Design-Kneaded-Rubber-Eraser/dp/B001BYK7PC

Sorry about the bad quality of the pic, but the idea is there!

I remember that stuff. I probably have a rock hard chunk hiding in a drawer somewhere.