Painting White Dashes

Painting the white dashes on the outer lines of the runway took some careful planning to figure out the proper steps but by breaking everything down into small tasks it became very easy to paint a complex paint layout. Basically I was able to calculate that from the end of the runway facing the bow of the carrier I needed to paint a 4 mm (5/32 inch) white square between each outer line every 25 mm (63/64 inch) while making sure the lines where parallel with the stern of the ship or in other words the beginning of the runway.

Inner Runway Lines

With five coats of Tamiya XF-2 flat white applied I removed the masking take from the inner lines of the runway. Each addition of detail is making this ship look amazing.

Masking More Lines

My next challenge is to make a second set of parallel lines on the runway that are slightly thicker that the first set and more inwards. The first outer line is about 1mm where the second inner line is about 2mm. Lining up the masking tape properly was no easy task at this scale.

Yellow Dashes

Using reference photos, Adobe Photoshop and Excel I managed to calculate the length of each dash at a scale of 1:800 which came to 19 mm or about 3/4 of an inch in length with the beginning and end dash being slightly off. I started by using a ruler on a plane piece of paper to mark the areas that were to be painted yellow than applied vertical tape on top of the existing horizontal tape that was used to mask the white line. I then applied three coats of Tamiya XF-3 flat yellow allowing a 30 min dry time between coats and removed all the masking tape. Now this carrier is starting to really look like one!

Lots of Masking

Seeing how long it is going to take to paint all the lines on the runway I have decided to accelerate the process by doing multiple at the same time. 

Masking the Middle of the Runway

Having set the bar high for the painted forty one on the deck, I and now proceeding in masking and painting the runway. One of the reasons I decided to paint instead of use the decals was the fact that the ARII kit decals decals have yellowed and don't look that great. I've done some research and feel confident that I can make this look very good. The key is to just break everything down into smaller tasks using lots of masking tape. The photo show the masking of the center line will will be eventually dashed yellow and white.

41

After five coats of white paint I have completed painting the numbers forty one on the deck of the Midway.

Painting the "41"

Having painted the number one on the deck which was a very simple mask, I worked quite a bit tonight to mask the number 4 which required a lot more tape. I decided to paint as much as possible the deck details instead of using the decals to give it a better finish...

Panel Lines Simple & Easy Technique

Using a STAEDTLER pigment liner 0.05 (very fine) I highlighted all the elevators, catapults and jet blast deflectors (JDB) to give it more depth. A simple and easy trick I recently discovered...

Paint Rack

I've had the idea for probably about a year now to make myself a paint rack as I have been finding it harder and harder to find the color I am looking for as my paint collection has expanded over the past 8 years.

After a bit of research online to see other examples I headed out to my local hardware store (Canac Marquis) and picked up an 8 foot piece of square molding in pine wood for about $10. I had pre-calculated the all my cuts, took out my miter saw, cut it up, assembled and glued together with white carpenter glue.

Voila! A nice simple paint rack that can accommodate up to 64 bottles of 4ml Tamiya paint. I have almost 50 bottles of paint so I still have a bit of space left before considering building another one although at this point I have pretty much all the basic colors so my collection has not been increasing by much...

This was a great little weekend project that did not cost much, was fun and simple to build, and most importantly made my hobby workspace a much more organized and professional workspace.