This morning I unmasked XH134 after the colour scheme of the fuselage was completed last night. The first Canberra of the trio (XH135), was half the Hemp and Light Grey scheme, and half the ARTF Grey scheme during the removal process. XH134 has the all over Hemp/Light Grey scheme with the Dark Grey tail for the retirement scheme tail art.
Over Thursday and Friday evenings, I started to mask up the fuselage to paint the RAF Hemp colour.First, the curved edges under the wings and engine were cut from some wide Tamiya tape and stuck in place on the model. Next I used some various widths of low tack blue tape to finish the edges of the grey areas.
Once all of the edges were masked up, then the remaining areas underneath the model were masked up ready for painting. It is surprising how much tape gets used up on a model this size, not looking forward to doing the 1/48th scale Canberra's I have, or any of the large scale aircraft in my stash!
After the under side was masked up, the tail needed to be masked next. First I laid out the edge with some 1mm tape followed by some 2mm tape. The tail was finished off with the wide blue tape. Next job, paint her!
Painting did not progress until last night, Saturday was spent doing swimming lessons, painting the secret project (which went wrong for some strange reason) then running around after our daughter and grandchildren. So light coats of the RAF Hemp started to go down until I got it to the stage I wanted it to be. I let more of the pre-shading show though on the upper wing surfaces then on the fuselage, it would be more prominent here.
So, onto this morning. After running out of time last night, de-masking was left until today. As usual, there is that dread that when you remove the tape, will it pull off any of the paint surrounding it or will there be any bleeding under the masking. No need to fear, once all of the tape was off, it was all okay. All of the curved masked line were just perfect and there was no bleeding anywhere. I was a Happy Bunny!
Now I need to do just a little more masking on this one. The cockpit canopy parts need painting, flap openings, undercarriage bays and all of the relevant parts associated with these areas. I hope by the end of this week, there may be some decals down on the model and even some final assembly, but lets just wait and see!
For those who are just wondering about the masking tapes that I use, these are as follows. My draw consists of Tamiya tapes in 6mm, 10mm, 18mm and 40mm rolls. The thin blue tape is from Jammydog and is in 1mm, 2mm and 3mm widths. The wide blue tape is from B&Q, it is their own branded low tack tape. It pays to get the 50 metre roll rather then the 25 metre roll. Also there are some rolls from Aizu (Japanese firm) in sizes starting from 0.4mm and normal 25mm low tack decorating masking tape. This is backed up with a bottle of Micro Mask to.
Anyway, a little step back to Sunday morning. I needed to stock up on some paints and enamel thinners, so a trip up to Milton Keynes to visit Model Zone up there. Kyran came along to so he could buy either some toys or games for the Wii. We met up with my mate Richard and progressed to the shops and found some of the paints I needed. But this is where is goes tits up! I started to look on the "Sales" shelves and what did I see. An Airfix 1/48th scale Canberra PR9 kit for £9.99. Not one but three of them! It was like handing sweets to a kid, I just had to get another one of them, or should I get two? No, I just got the one PR9, and an Airfix 1/72nd Bell P-39 Airacobra (it was only £1.99).
So beware of model shop tempting you with irresistable bargains on their shelves!
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