Patrick's Paint Shop - a place for plane painting projects

[Robert S]

Highly recommend Vallejo

I just looked them up. Lots of cool stuff there. Thank you for that. I'm also drawn to getting some Archive-X ILM certified Star Wars paints but I think I'll hold off on that until I sort of know what I'm doing.

I'm going to need to build a little paint station inorder to keep the over-spay from spreading around the room too much.

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

Make your own thinners up, it works out cheaper plus doubles up as a cleaner.
Thinners is made up from - IPA (Iso-Propyl-alcohol), deionised or distilled water and Windex (easy to get hold of if you live in the USA). I think its the ammonia content in the Windex that helps.
For cleaning the airbrush just use the IPA/water combination and miss out the Windex.
You can experiment with adding glycerin to the thinners it helps increase wet out time, you will find acrylic paint dries quick particularly when you use compressed air to spray it. The glycerin prolongs the drying time which you need sometimes when blending etc
If memory serves me correct the Cleaning solution is 70% IPA 30% water and a few drops of Windex, for making it into a thinners.

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

Sorry should have mentioned the little containers of Vallejo can be sprayed direct and don't need thinning in most cases. It depends on the airbrush point size your using (<1.0, I would still use a thinners). Use a graduated pipette so you have an idea what quantity of paint to thinners work best.

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

I remember a young lad at my old model flying cub, turning up with a large nitro helicopter one day. The flight trainer said you have no chance of flying that model lad, there is no stabilisation it will be a devil to hover. He said to the lad go and get these items and come back and I will teach you to hover, without crashing it.
An hour later the lad was spotted running across the field with 2 lengths of wooden dowel, cable ties and something else in his right hand. He was being chased by a very large angry gorilla.
The flight trainer shouted to the lad, you didn't listen did you. I said "get 2 lengths of dowel, some cable ties and some PING PONG balls" !

 

[Bricks]

Back in the days before gyro`s fly bars and such to learn to fly a helicopter we would take a piece of glass glue some wood edges to it. Glue the glass to a ball gimbal, install servos with push rods for pitch and roll. For practice try and keep a metal ball in the center and move it around the piece of glass with out loosing control of the ball. Try that sometime especially on the old radios with no such thing as Expo and such.

 

[TheFlyingBrit]

Back in the days before gyro`s fly bars and such to learn to fly a helicopter we would take a piece of glass glue some wood edges to it. Glue the glass to a ball gimbal, install servos with push rods for pitch and roll. For practice try and keep a metal ball in the center and move it around the piece of glass with out loosing control of the ball. Try that sometime especially on the old radios with no such thing as Expo and such.

I never got the bug for flying helicopters, but use to admire the guys flying the nitro versions in the early days, with no gyro's or flight stabilisation.
They used the crossed pieces of wood with balls on the end, but even that couldn't eliminate all potential crashes - its an expensive pastime flying those things, when they go wrong.

 

[mastermalpass]

Back in the days before gyro`s fly bars and such to learn to fly a helicopter we would take a piece of glass glue some wood edges to it. Glue the glass to a ball gimbal, install servos with push rods for pitch and roll. For practice try and keep a metal ball in the center and move it around the piece of glass with out loosing control of the ball. Try that sometime especially on the old radios with no such thing as Expo and such.

I think I might try that. I'm keen to get into more scale heli flying, but right now my 'hovering' looks like it's floating on wavy seas.

 

[mastermalpass]

I don't know how I misded this thread when it first came up. There's loads of awesome designs in here! I think my proudest piece was the synthwave-inspired 'cyber plane' livery I put on the RC Powers Su-35 V5:

 

[Robert S]

I don't know how I misded this thread when it first came up. There's loads of awesome designs in here! I think my proudest piece was the synthwave-inspired 'cyber plane' livery I put on the RC Powers Su-35 V5:

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In one way it kinda has a "Tron" sort of feel and in another way its kind of "Blade Runner."

 

[checkerboardflyer]

This isn’t an idea about painting, but it is something to consider when adding trim to your foam board model. Here’s the idea: Take a piece of color foam board, draw a design on it, then make a shallow cut on the design, then remove the parts you don’t want. There is a tool that allows you to trim photos, cut coupons, do scrapbooking, and clip articles from magazines. It cuts one layer of paper and it’s perfect for such a foam board project. There are several different models available. I used one called Slice, but there are others out there. The pictures will help to explain. For the whole story, visit my blog at: https://foamboardflyers.com

 

[mastermalpass]

In one way it kinda has a "Tron" sort of feel and in another way its kind of "Blade Runner."

Both 80s, both cyber, both carry a pretty dark overtone. Exactly what this paint job tries to capture! 😁

To be honest, it's really just a justification for putting Carpenter Brut and Perturbator songs in in it's flight videos.

 

[Foamforce]

I've been hesitant to do much painting because I haven't learned how to mask. I have an airbrush now and I have painters tape.

I'd like to paint the classic sunburst pattern on my wings. I'm doing white (unpainted foam board) as one of my colors. So I figure I should mask the areas that are going to stay white, but I'm not sure how to get the masking tape the right shape and then transfer it to the wing without making a mess.

Can I apply masking tape to the entire wing and then very carefully cut through the tape while cutting into the airplane as little as possible? Or should I stick a strip of masking tape to waxed paper, cut it to the appropriate shape, then peel it off the wax paper and carefully apply it to the airplane? Maybe cut my masking into a sheet of kraft paper, apply some Super 77, and stick it to my wing, hoping that the Super 77 would remove easily from the poly'ed surface?

If somebody could list the steps they would take to mask and paint a sunburst pattern, I would appreciate that!

 

[RedTwilight]

This won't help with the Sunburst design in the above post, but it may give you some ideas as to how to proceed. And if it helps others great!

It's a little tutorial I wrote up a few years ago.
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2448290-Profile-Foamy-Paint-How-To

 

[RedTwilight]

And maybe for a little inspiration, here are a couple of other paint jobs I did.

 

[Foamforce]

This won't help with the Sunburst design in the above post, but it may give you some ideas as to how to proceed. And if it helps others great!

It's a little tutorial I wrote up a few years ago.
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2448290-Profile-Foamy-Paint-How-To

That seems like it would work for sunburst! Why wouldn’t it? Great tutorial and thank you!

What do you do when going around edges, like the leading edge of the wing? Is that stencil aggressive strong enough to wrap it around? Do you use lighter paper instead of poster board for that?

 

[RedTwilight]

That seems like it would work for sunburst! Why wouldn’t it? Great tutorial and thank you!

What do you do when going around edges, like the leading edge of the wing? Is that stencil aggressive strong enough to wrap it around? Do you use lighter paper instead of poster board for that?

For the edge of the foamboard, you might could use some painters tape. I would think that would be the best and most simple way. You can even cut the tape if needed into thinner strips.

 

[Adam F]

Is using paint pens on maker foam completely unreasonable? I have a fairly detailed design that I want to do and I'm not super confident in my spray painting/masking abilities

 

[luvmy40]

Can't see any reason that wouldn't work nicely. I've used sharpie markers for what little detailed "painting" I've done.

 

[RedTwilight]

Is using paint pens on maker foam completely unreasonable? I have a fairly detailed design that I want to do and I'm not super confident in my spray painting/masking abilities

Go up a couple posts and look at the 2 planes with the flames. The old school flames were outlined using paint pens directly onto the bare foam. I did not see any sort of deformation of the foam.

But as a safety precaution, first to a test on some scrap to be sure.