Hi Guys and girls,
I'm in need of some advice.
I'm at the point of masking the glass areas of the Academy Ju87 and I just don't get it.
I feel like i don't have enough hands to start with.
What am i doing wrong
the biggest problem I'm having is laying the tape alongside the frame work its never straight and generally gets stuck to the tweezers I'm using.
Is there a trick to mounting the canopy on something???
I'm using general masking tape cut into thin strips and laid over a canopy dipped in KLEAR,

I really really want this to work so I can post pic I actually happy with the build so far.

Any tips appreciated.

Regards

Chris

Hi Chris,
Don't use general masking tape it will cause you more problems than enough. You can buy canopy mask sets but, in general, they never fit 100% I use Parafilm M, but that takes some getting used to. The easiest solution is to use Tamiya's excellent masking tape. It is a bit expensive but it is the best tape for masking clean edges (there are other brands now on the market but Tamiy's tape is easy to get hold of). When using any masking tape always use a cut edge, as the side of the tape will be prone to picking up dust and stuff.
To mask your canopy:
Lay the tape on a cutting surface (I use a cutting mat), use a sharp blade and steel straight edge cut a thin strip, 2-3mm wide. Cut this strip it usable lengths, just over half the length of the frame that you want to mask. Now cut a less the 45 deg angle on one end, the end that will go into the corner. Lay the tape onto the canopy with the pointy end into the corner and the long edge along the frame. Take your time and ensure that the tape is correctly positioned. Tamiya tape can be lifted and replaced as many times as required. Cut another length of tape, again just over half the length of the frame and with the angled point the opposite way. This piece will go into the opposite corner and overlap the first. Doing it this way saves you having to try and cut the tape to exact dimensions. Do this for all sides; you will find that by cutting the angle at less than 45deg the point will allow you to get into the corner accurately and the angles will overlap each other therefore masking the complete corner. Mask the inside area with a rectangle of tape, and repeat for all windows. This method will work for all angled corners, even over a radius, such as the top of the Ju87 canopy as the Tamiya tape has excellent adhesion properties, even though it is low tack. For rounded and angle corners take a piece of tape similar to the above, but without the angled cut, lay it on the window, against the frame and overlapping the rounded or angled corner. Burnish the tape down into the corner so that yo can see the shape through the tape. There is a couple of ways that you can now proceed:
1. Use a sharp blade and cut around the corner shape.
2. Use a sharp pencil to draw the shape, remove the tape and cut it out, replace the tape.

This does take time so do it in bite sized pieces over a few modelling sessions. I tend to mask the canopies in one sitting unless it's something like a He111 canopy where I might do it in 3-4 sittings. It does get much easier as you get to grips with it, 'onest Holding the canopy up to a light source helps to see the frames.

I hope that all makes sense, I do plan on writing some articles about masking but they are some way in the future as I am building my Office/Man cave at the moment and then I have a lot of catching up to do. Man Cave

You can see an SBS of how I did my Ju388 canopy here: https://aeroscale.kitmaker.net/forums/169471&page=6#1649713

A great tip I got was to put two shorter strips of tape along each side, starting at the corners, and overlapping at the middle. That eliminates a lot of measuring, and trimming at the corners. Another tip for round corners is to apply some tape to a bit of scrap acetate and punch circles using a punch set. Peel the tape form the acetate dots and bingo- there's you corners.

Mal and Chuk
Thanks for your input Guys
I'm gonna try both methods and see what happens
OTHERWISE I'll try handpainting.....


Cheers

Chris

As far as I'm concerned there's only two answers to your problem:

1- Find the Eduard pre-cut mask if it is available.

2- If no pre-cut mask is available, the easiest thing by far is to use "Bare-metal foil": It was recently demonstrated to me by a friend, and it was a revelation: It solved all my masking problems at once, and requires zero skills with a fresh #11 blade: Apply it in as many pieces, or not, as you want: Burnish it down well with Q-tips, then cut following the highly delineated canopy line, which is so incredibly crisp and easy to cut through that the foil crease seems litterally to guide your blade into a perfect line...

Any error, just burnish on another foil piece on it and cut again. This would be a nightmare with Tamiya tape...

No leakage ever, even with overlapping foil pieces if they are burnished well enough.

The downsides (2): 1-Removal can be long, as the aluminium wants to break up into smaller pieces on removal.

2-Glue residue IS left behind in large amounts by the foil, but it wipes off instantly with a paper towel barely imbibed with WD-40: This has the curious effect of making the canopy even shinier, and does not affect the paint.

Best trick I have ever learned: Complicated multi-pane canopies are now done more perfectly than I ever did them before, and, despite this, this is now a matter of minutes, not hours.

Masking canopies is now the easiest of all tasks, by far...

For smash-moulded canopies, which in my case are always smooth and frameless (and a big problem to mask), the option is now open to make the framework in thin strips of Tamiya tape (making obvious any alignment flaw beforehand), and then burnish bare-metal foil over it and use the prominent tape creases to cut perfect frames.

Gaston

I apply an oversized piece tamiya tape to the pane i want to mask so it overlaps the frame. Then I burnish the hell out of it with the end of a cocktail stick. Once it's well and down I take out the magnifying lamp and a fresh #12 blade. #12 can be swapped out for any similar blade with a rounded edge. Using the rounded part of the blade and not the tip i gently score out the panel outline. Once done the tape over the canopy frame peels free and leaves the glass masked. The only real tricks are the using the rounded "meat" of the blade as I like to call it and not the tip of a #11 as instinct might suggest. And remembering that you can only effectively score through one layer of tape. I've had god success with this approach and so long as you score the tape conscientously your glass will be fine.

I do more or less the same, only diffference is that I support the canopy on the inside with a transparent round piece of plexi glass to avoid breaking it, and with difficult formed canopies i sometimes fill them up with blue tac to make them more solid

I've used both bmf and what I mostly use is general masking tape just cover it in strips and then cut along the canopy frame with a sharp hoppy knife never been a problem.dont really see the need for precuts and I have many builds posted using this method