The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

Hi all
Thinking of investing in Parafilm and some rubber-tipped material shapers to paint 1/72 canopies. In the past I just covered the clear part in Humbrol Maskol prior to painting. Since then, Windsor and Newton masking fluid has replaced Humbrol Maskol as the preferred masking medium.

What are folk's preferences and why?

Are there situations where one technique is better than the other?

For those of you who have not heard of it, and I hadn't until a few days ago, here is a link:

http://www.2spi.com/catalog/supp/parafilm.php;

CNG

I bought some parafilm a couple of years back and used it once but found it too fiddly and haven't used it since. I may have some left if you want to try it first.

I tried some parafilm once; I thought it was very similar to cling-film. Patience is required in modelling, but I found parafilm pushed it

Mike Grant swears by Parafilm I swear at it. It does require some practice to get it right and probably not why you have an immediate need to mask something.

I'm old fashioned though and have stuck to Tamiya tape, a cocktail stick and a sharp knife, with reasonable success.

JamesPerrin wrote:Mike Grant swears by Parafilm I swear at it. It does require some practice to get it right and probably not why you have an immediate need to mask something.

I'm old fashioned though and have stuck to Tamiya tape, a cocktail stick and a sharp knife, with reasonable success.

I agree with you James, I have had mixed results with it, I think for the price its good value it just needs lots of practice to get it to work properly.

Regular masking fluid will make a mess of any Klear/ Future you have applied to the canopy, as it's often ammonia based. Gunze's Mr Masking Sol seems to be ok in that regard. My own preference is for Mr Masking Sol R. Paint it on all over, let it cure, then trim it with a new blade. It's like painted on tape.

Parafilm just makes me swear a lot. Life is way too short to be dealing with that stuff.

I tried Microsoft liquid mask, it goes on well and dries, but to cut the canopy lines you need a steady hand. I am going to practice marking and cut my own

canopy masking. I also tried eduard masking kit very good easy to use but new a good modelling budget to use all the time.