Over the Christmas holidays I was contacted by one of my customers, Jeroen Veen; he had been asked to build one of the Wingscale pre-production 1/32 B-25s. As it's a pre-production model there were no decals so Jeroen ask me if I could produce the necessary Stars and bars and serials. He sent me some info on the aircraft he was doing and it turned out to be the well known "Finito Benito" aircraft. I mentioned to Jeroen that I might be able to do the script on the wings and the fuselage "wings" and number 12 as well. I couldn't promise the outcome because I, of course, don't have the kit; but I do have the Accurate Miniatures B-25 in 1/48 scale. The positioning of the letters is crucial as there is detail on the wing that interferes with the masks and the letters fall in a particular way over the fairings on the upper wings. After many adjustments and trial fits (on my 1/48 set of wings) I was pretty happy with the results. The wing and 12 was impossible to get exactly right as on the B-25J there are bullet deflectors on the upper fuselage, aft of the gun turret. Jeroen reported that this was the only area that gave him any trouble and he has sent me more pictures so that I can adjust the masks. The "wings" are also about 3mm too long and will also be adjusted.

I was about a week behind my deadline for Jeroen but this was because I was waiting for my new plotter to arrive. Luckily I had ordered it before Christmas but, because of the holidays it couldn't be delivered until the first week in January; it actually arrived on the Friday This new machine is a professional plotter and is light years ahead of my old one (which will be on ebay soon) and has projected Miracle paint Masks into the 21st century. What I can do now has already meant that I have had to start looking at changing a few of my instructions. Scale dashes (in 1/32 scale) for Luftwaffe "no walk" areas are now a real possibility

Here are some of Jeroens pictures of the painted on markings made possible by Miracle Paint Masks:



















I think that these pictures show the advantage of painted on markings over decals.

Hi Mal,

Excellent! I have one of the B-25 on pre-order and will probably make use of your masks when I will build it. It is the "Cannon" version...

Jean-Luc

Hi Santa-Luc,
I look forward to seeing what you have planned, I've pre-ordered a glass nosed version from WEM and I can't wait to get my hands on it. I was going to build it as "Finito Benito" but I'm now looking for another aircraft, but it will be NMF and a USAF machine. I already have the nose art for my B17G for when that is released; A Bit O' Lace