How do I paint my fuselage?

[Ryan]

Re: How do I paint my fuselage?

Hey Tim, trying to remember here, I assembled all of the unpainted cowels to the unpainted boot cowel and assembled that to the yellow painted fuselage and ran a chalk line from the tail to the grills. That helped get the stripes at right height on fuselage. That was a "hey looks good there". Then measured for the other side. A constant was windshield fairing for the top of the black stripe. Painted fuselage on rotatory. For the cowels, I finished the coot cowel through the stripe first. I again reassembled everything just to get that stripe. Finished boot cowel. I then put the yellow painted cowels on the finished boot cowel and used the stripe and the bottom zeus fastner under the cowel that attaches to the heat box as reference points. My dad drew a big circle on cardboard paper and we taped it up, and drew on the line. As far as how big to make the circle, we just eyeballed that and said looks good. drew on a line, removed the template and flipped to the other side, repeated. Can't remember what we used as a circle template...but you can see the template on the floor in the pic of the taped bottom cowl. Make sure to fit your windshield fairing to line up your stripes. We used chalk lines down the fuselage to keep things straight. I made sure that the entire nose bowel stayed yellow for simplicity. I also did purchase good tape for the automotive paint store for masking the curves.

[crispy critter]

Re: How do I paint my fuselage?

Here's a pacer cowling i just completed, built from scratch. I still need to put the blue pin stripes on.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: How do I paint my fuselage?

Years ago I spoke with a painter who worked at the factory just after the war. He told me management didn't really care about the dividing line on the fuselage. They ran the tape from front to back and one guy held it while the other pushed it down. Sometimes it ran to the base of the fin post, sometimes part way up between the bottom of the fuselage and the stab. The only thing that mattered was that both sides of the same plane be the same! He also said that if the division did NOT go to the lower rear corner of the fuselage the rudder would either have a curve down or could go straight back (again. making sure it was the same on both sides). The same was true for the cowl. The "Deluxe curve" wasn't the same every time.

That explained why do many photos I had showed it different ways. It was done how the painter felt that day! The same went for the second color on the wing leading edge. Sometimes the tip curved back, sometimes the line went straight to the end, sometimes it curved all the way back to the trailing edge at the rib outboard of the aileron, and sometimes, but not often, they just left the second color off of the wings. Just depended on how the painter felt and if the wings were ready to paint trim before it was time to mount them.

Hank

What this means is, however you do it (within reason) no one can say it isn't right.........but someone always will. ;-)


By the way, REALLY nice model! And I agree, the slightly cream color looks a lot better than the "snow white". But that could be just us.

Ryan,
How did you know exactly where to lay the masking tape on the curved lines? Did you have a few key spots that you knew you had to hit?
Or did you just eyeball it?
Any info that you can give me will be appreciated.
Tim

[N96337]

Re: How do I paint my fuselage?

Some good advice given above. I always try to paint all the parts the base color as close to the same time as possible. For one thing, like with the cowl, then I'm not trying to put a cowl on and off a painted fuselage, while trying to final fit it, and scratching my paint. It takes a lot of care not to put a nick or scratch in new paint. I've used green masking tape to cover a painted spot that I'm going to have to place something on to fit it, but it's just easier to me to get it all done first, then I'm not having to worry so much. I always take my color paint and pour ALL of it into a big container (before I catalyze or any mixing of any sort) and mix it together. Blend it well and then pour it back into the individual containers and use as needed. Even the very best paint can have a very slight variance from batch to batch, and pouring all the color together will even that out. Also, if you paint all the parts as soon as possible to eachother, the paint is going to stay matching closer due to age of the catalyzed paint. I've seen people do all I've described and wait a year or even more to paint a cowl or something (fairings are usually the last things they fit), only to see a difference in the shade of paint, due to UV exposure (florescent lights give UV off, and maybe the fuselage is sitting out in the sun or near a window, etc.) and age of the paint. Like Terry said, paint a coat of white first, before the yellow....on the cowl and everything, or you're going to see a difference.
I always pull the mask as soon as I'm done painting. I was taught to do that, and never have had a problem with a stripe since. Always use a "fine line" tape to mask a stripe, then I use green masking tape and paper from there.
There are a couple trains of thought about masking. One is that you lay the fine line first, to outline the design, then mask. This is the way I do it, but the other is to mask the area, then finish with the fineline. I'll explain the difference that it makes....
I prefer to lay the fineline first, as it's easier for me to visualize the final design. Once the fineline is down, then I go back in and lay my masking paper and green masking tape up to the fineline. When I'm done painting, I pull the paper and green tape first, then go back and pull the fineline, pulling it back over it's self and just slightly toward the stripe. This way it gives a shearing motion to the paint and if there happens to be a small string of paint that hangs onto the edge of the tape, it will fall back into the stripe instead of outside. Does that make sense? Some will pull the fineline over the other side, away from the stripe, but I've seen a string of dark stripe paint drop onto a light base and make more work for the painter.
The other way I've done it is to mask all but the fineline, and finish with the fineline tape, to the final design. The advantage to this method is that when you're pulling your fineline tape off of the stripe, you've still got masking paper down to protect all but the very edge of the base color. It's a more foolproof way of doing it in that respect, but like I said before, I can't visualize the final design as well.
When it really takes some thought is when you're using 5 or 6 colors and some overlap... then you've got to plan out that masking so that you're not having to remove/install the masking a bunch of times. (such as a lot of the custom paint work I used to do)
Waiting too long to pull tape is just begging for a stripe edge to pull or chip, especially where the stripe tapers. When you're done shooting, blast a short blast of thinner through the gun and set it down, then get to pulling tape. When things are untaped/unmasked, then go clean the gun up.
It doesn't really take that much more work to get a really nice job, than it does to get an average job. Don't get in a hurry.
Nice looking Pacer, Kevin!!