Window Masking Problem

[Guest]

Got in a bit of a mess on the last model with masking windows. The Catalina I am now building has a similar problem.

The windows have to be glued in inside the fuselage. No problem with glueing them in as the fuselage is recessed where the windows are situated & the recess is much longer & wider plus the window itself is much larger than it appears externally. Wow that perhaps is difficult to get over. See if I can get a picture. Anyway this means no problem in hiding the glue lines when viewed form externally.

But the windows on the outside curve into the fuselage which makes it impossible (seems to me) to mask. Has any one overcome this kind of problem. Thinking of masking before fixing the windows in place.

Any ideas very welcome.

Laurie

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[Ian M]

If it was me I could find myself leaving the window out! It looks quite small.

Then after the Fuselage was painted, I would fill the "hole" with Micro Scales Kristal Klear or a similar product. Derek shows it off to good effect in his build thread of his Trawler. I have also used it many times on boats for portholes and small windows on aircraft.

Ian M

[stona]

Thinking of masking before fixing the windows in place.

That's what I do.

You do need to be careful that none of the masking ends up behind the plastic in the recess,careful cutting of the masking and dry fitting is needed. If you do get any of the masking in there I virtually guarantee that you will end up losing the window inside the fuselage as you struggle to clean it up.

Ask me how I know

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

looks like a job for a little blob of plastiscene to me ..... easy to mould into shape and easy to peel off when done.

[Guest]

That is an interesting solution Colin.

Think I will airbrush first on the out side around the window frames with out the windows being fitted & masked across from the inside. Then fit the plastic windows. Then mask either white tack or tape across the window area as tight as possible to the window opening edge. Hopefully I will not get a discernible edge. Think that really calls for white tack rather than tape as with care full airbrushing I should not get a paint edge.

That to me looks like a good solution. Let you know if this works OK.

Laurie

[Guest]

I've used liquid mask with success in cases like this,just my .02

[Guest]

Concave Windows.

Hi,

As Ian says leave them out until painting is complete. A further improvement would be to replace the concave windows I doubt the orginals were concave. this is quite easy to do with short lengths of fibre optic light guide to be found on Ebay for pence a meter sizes varying from 0.5 to 2 mm in 1/2 mm increments. Cut a short length pop it in the Dremel or whatever polish up with some 12000 grit paper and hey presto ,the inside looks a bit like porcupine but that can't be seen and the end result looks far better than bits of plastic or acetate ,to the extent that I am thinking of reworking all the portholes on HMS Bluebell in this way.

Cheers sharowjohn. lane:

[Guest]

Hi John. Not sure what you have in mind here. The sizes of my windows are in the region of 10mm by 5mm which does not seem to fit your sizes. Am I misreading & not understanding here ?

Laurie