Hi Matt,

Well a couple of things. First is backmasking. You really only need to backmask (unless your are concerned about weight) if color butt against each other. I you plan a paint scheme that has some space between trim colors, then you can generally tape all the trim colors at once then just cover up whatever you don't want painted for each color then pull all the tape at once. If the trim color back up against each other, then you can tape of the lines and overspray onto areas that are going to get another color anyway. It takes some planning to minimize the amount of taping and masking to do. Taping refers to the tape (usually vinyl) that you use for the paint edge. Masking is what you do to cover the area you don't want painted.

As far as checkerboard, there are a number of ways to do it and I'm sure others will chime in with their own methods. With me, it depends on how complicated the scheme is and how many compound curves it goes around. If it's mostly flat or relatively flat areas, then I use vinyl or frisket paper to cut out the checkerboard and lay it out. If the checkerboar wraps around wing tips or other compound curve surfaces, then I just use vinyl tape and methodically tape the thing off (often a several hour job). One method I tried on the last checkerboard scheme I did was to use paint on vinyl then cut the area on the plane. Realy tedious and in some ways harder since you have to be ridiculously careful not to puncture paper or cut into the wood. The stuff cuts very, very easily and will tear easily. Takes some practice.

Hope that helps. Some anyway. If you can find the thread on Eric Viglione's last plane, he shows a very good strategy for taping without a lot of backmasking.

Here is what I plan to paint the wing and stab in.  Same trim so I'll only show the wing.

Edit:  I am thinking of painting the whole plane in silver as a base.  On Windy's videos he silvers the whole plane so he gets better coverage.  Then I would put the white, blue, red and black on.  Maybe I'll leave a silver strip in between colors on the fuselage so then I would back mask that.

Thanks Glenn, what I do is look at different paint schemes that I like and then start drawing up some schemes.  I think i made close  to 18 diffrerent paint schemes before I made this one and I liked it enough to paint it on the plane.  I think this paint scheme has a sort of racy feel to it.

Oh and I got the profile scheme from Bob Hunt's red white and blue saturn

Bob is absolutly correct on this Matt. Silver works but you better coat it with thinned clear before any other paints are applied. I've learned this the hard way, when the tape pulls up evrything down to the silver.

Windy is a great finisher no doubt about it. Let me save you some grief I would re think using silver especially if your doing a complicated paint scheme. Silver has poor adhesion property's. If painting the plane white use white with some black mixed in to get a light gray for base. If you have to have silver be sure to top coat it with 60%-40% clear first but I highly recommend you don't use silver as a base.

Ask Randy Ryan how he did his saber as he might know some tricks on silver.

well then, I guess I'll use regular auto primer, which I normally use.  But I've heard and seen red is a tough color to get right.  The base color always seems to bleed through so I guess that would be the first color I would put on and then back mask the red and paint on the white.  That is what I am thinking of doing.

On the Ares, I put a coat of auto primer, sanded it, then I out a coat of silver on, and sanded that.  Then I put my last coat of primer and just sanded it smooth.  After that I put my base color on.

Robert is correct. I you use silver as a base, make sure you shoot it with a heavily thinned coat of clear. I actaully use 20/80 spilt. I didn't do that with my last PA plane and I paid for it in spades. Not a thing I will do again (should have know that metallics are just as bad as regular silver).

Buy yourself a box of one sided razor blade. They work really well for cutting 3M blue vinyl tape (or Finesse Pinstripping tape that I tend to use). With this scheme, you should be able to tape it off all at once if you shoot the white first.

Nice scheme, by the way.

I use that tape for all my curves in the paint scheme.  we have both 1/8 and 1/16 inch tape.  I really like this tape because it does work well, and it is flexible.  Masking tape is not flexible.  I also make templates like I did for my smoothie, and I cut out the plans for the trim for the Ares to get it layed out.

Glad you like the scheme 

Hope that helps. Some anyway. If you can find the thread on Eric Viglione's last plane, he shows a very good strategy for taping without a lot of backmasking.

Randy, I found Eric's masking thread.  Here is the link if anybody wants to see it http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php?topic=10829.0  He does show a good way of masking, and I'm trying to visualize me using this method on my plane.

This is why Mark, I would want to spray the red only where it should be sprayed on my scheme, then backmask it for the white.  Then I would spray the blue over the white, and then that strip of black.

My grandfather learned the hard way also.  He sprayed red over black and the black bled throught horribly.  He sprayed  on close to 6 coats of red and it was still bleeding through.  He decided to strip it and refinish it, and the silkspan became like wallpaper (I'm not kidding), it was that thick.

Mark,

That's the truth. On the profile I just did, I shot the whole thing white first. Then masked off the canopy and the stripe down the fuse then taped off and sprayed the red. The white was decent coverage (or as good as you can get with one coat), but pretty thin overall. Then I masked and sprayed the yellow. Sure can't tell how thin I did the white and the red and yellow really jump.

FWIW, Frisket comes with many different adhesive types. A great deal of it is sold for use with watercolor, and gauche ( spelling?) type paints,, all water based media. There are frisket mask that are formulated specifically for use with solvent based media however use of something like retarder will greatly add to the potential for grief.

Matt,
that is a pretty fine type style,, fine as in , narrow. Narrow lines are difficult to cut ormask cleanly. any variation in the width of the letter will show. Were it me, I would look to have a sign shop cut it for you on thier vinyl plotter with gerber mask
that being said it is your creation, and you may give it a go on your own with a sharp #11 blade and frisket. ( off the airplane I might add,,,,, )

I fooled around with the numbers and letters on Word and I came up with this.  I plan on getting decal paper and printing this out on that paper because this is way to difficult to mask.

Hi Matt,
I don't know which the final size of your lettering will be, but let me suggest you something:
Large waterslide decals made out of decal paper are very prone to break while applying them over the surface. As you can imagine, the decal film is VERY thin and fragile. In my experience, no matter how careful you are, they will break in some place while you are in the process of getting rid of air bubbles and wrinkles, and even maybe while sliding it over the wing.
Plus, I can anticipate another drawback: the edge of the decal will show up later and I'm sure you will not like this.

I think that the best way for you to do that nice lettering is using a plotted, low tack vinyl stencil mask and your airbrush. You'll be MUCH happier with the results.
Use the decal paper for smaller placards, small lettering and so on (as the ones shown in the pictures).

Later,
Claudio.

Claudio, that is the size the numbers and letters would be.  That is on 8 1/2x11 inch paper landscape.  On my Ares, I have that edge on it that is ok (ok meaning it isn't great, but not horrible).  There is a graphics store in my area, so I could see if they'll make me a mask of it in that font.  When I put the Ares decal on the wing, it tore, but I got it back together close enough that you have to look really close to find the tear mark.

Yea, going to a sign shop and having them cut you a vinyl mask is really a good option. Most aren't too expensive. Last time I did this, I printed out what I wanted using WordArt and wrote the font type on the sheet. Took it to the sign shop and he cut it, no problem. Works pretty well.

Mark,

Ya thiink?