The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

Hey All

I'm hoping for a bit of guidance.

I'm building the old Frog Whitley and making my first foray into using vac form canopies and turrets, and I am not sure of the best approach to framing them. Generally, with kit canopies, I mask the frame and paint the frames in by hand (I don't have an airbrush). Any excess is cleared away with a cocktail stick.

As the vacform canopy I shall be using is not as rigid as the kit canopy, I'm not sure if this approach will work. I'm a bit concerned about damaging the vac form canopy.

The vac form instructions say to use painted decal paper but won't the paint flake off when the paper is applied round the curves? I will be painting it using Tamiya acrylics.

Also, where do you get decal paper from? I live near Sydney but haven't seen it in any of my local model shops. Online?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Cheers
Springy

My solution to "beefing up" vac-canopies for cutting, painting, etc is to stuff them with Blu-Tac.

They are stronger before being cut from the sheet, so you can paint most the frame before cutting it out, then just touch-up after cutting it out and gluing it on.

Try painting "Scotch' tape (the type that has a slightly matt surface that doesn't show up in photocopies) with the required colour and then once dry, cut into narrow strips using a new scalpel blade and a steel rule. Stick the tape onto the canopies as required and then seal into place with a gloss varnish