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8/6/2019 Painting Stripes
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Tech Tips
Painting Stripes text and drawings by Martin Waligorski
model photos by Peter Alsterberg
Not only D-Day Many aircraft color schemes require painting
multicolor stripes of different kinds. The most
well-known examples are of course D-Day stripes,
but the stripe markings were widely used on other
occasions. Multicolor Reich's Defense tail bands orblack-and-yellow stripes of Suez Campaign are
other examples.
Except for the regulation-enforced military
markings, many individual and unit aircraft
schemes featured stripe motifs, sometimes very
colorful. What especially comes to my mind are
the USAAF 8th Air Force Assembly Ships. On
some of these B-24 Liberators the entire surface of
the aircraft was covered with multi-color stripes. It
would be a challenge to model one of those!
Some modellers find it quite hard getting the
stripes even and straight, especially on the curved
surfaces like around the fuselage. The solution could be decals, but these often tend to misalign,
not cover properly and generate problems on compound curves anyway.
Achieving great results by painting is not at all difficult, it only requires careful preparation and
good masking material. Here is how.
Planning
The method which I'm about to describe leads to well-aligned, straight edged stipes of uniform
width. Before you start, check your references and think for a moment if that is what you want.
Many frontline-applied markings like D-Day stripes were painted very hastily by ground
personnel which used only most rudimentary measurement and a paintbrush. I such cases the
results on real aircraft were often less than perfect (to say the least). Should you wish to
replicate such job on your model, it's better to go for the similar application by hand-painting
and Mk. II Eyeball, and be happy with any imperfections you might produce.
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This picture shows a preserved B-26 Marauder with perfectly aligned D-Day stripes,
but this is not the way they used to be back in June 1944.
Photo: Totavia Adrian Cybriwsky Aviation Image Archives
Ok, you have been warned. Now I will describe how to make perfect D-Day stripes, because
they form a good example. If you don't know how D-Day stripes looked like, take a look at the
adjactent photograph.
The technique
Here comes the step-by-step description of the process.
As with many things in life, success builds on preparation. The first step is to cut out lengths of
masking tape of uniform width, corresponding to the width of a single stripe.
To do this, I stick several lengths of masking tape (I prefer Tamiya masking tape, but your
favouroite brand will do) onto a clean glass sheet or ceramic plate. This provides a good hard
working surface for cutting.
Then the tape should be trimmed to desired width with a steel rule and a hobby knife with new,
pointed blade. When cutting is ready, I check the width once again using a precision compass
and discard the pieces that I'm not satisfied with. The remaining bits are left on the glass - this
way I preserve the tape's sticking qualities.
A good tip is to make plenty of spare length to provide for mistakes.
Step two is to spray the striped area of the airframe with the background color. For D-Day
stri es that would be white. This should be done rior to aintin the rest of the camoufla e
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this way you can save yourself some extra masking further on.
On to step three. I mask off the white area by putting all five stripes of my masking tape side
by side. The alignment should be very tight, with no gap or overlap between the stripes. Some
tweaking might be needed to get everything straight at this point, especially on the curved
surfaces like around the fuselage or wing leading edges. That's why plenty of spare tape was
needed in step one. Also, my previously mention preference of Tamiya masking tape comes
from it's elastic qualities, which allow it to be curved to some degree making it easier to mask
in such places.
The result should be the entire stripe area (5 stripes) completely masked off.
Step four. Now it's time to proceed with the remaining paint job. I airbrush the camo patern on
the entire model.
Step five. When everything is dry again, I get back to the stripes. Actually it's time to start
painting them! Carefully remove the two tape masks in the middle (where the black color
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each extreme.
Now I can airbrush the black color over the stripe areas. Aha! Don't forget to mask off the
surrounding areas of the airframe to avoid the black overspray. This masking is very easy - I
use 3Ms Sticky Notes or Parafilm M for lare coverage masking like this.
In the final step, remove all masks, and voilá - beautiful stripes of sharp edges and perfectlyuniform width!
Conclusion
Upon seeing my F4U-7 model, one of my club colleagues commented "You must have had
plenty of time to do this". Well, not really. There is nothing especially difficult in the described
method, and it doesn't take much work to do. The only drawback is that you have to wait for the
paint to dry between steps.
And a final comment: as many masking techniques, this one requires a dependable masking
material. If you haven't got a favourite yet, try experimenting on some scrap parts first before
attempting a multi-stage masking job like this one on the real model.
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Paint your stripes yourself next time!
Another example of very nicely executed stripes is this 1/48 model of Hawker Sea Fury
by Mats Langueville.
Black-and-white markings of the Korean campaign were applied using techniques described above.