Sky fuselage band on Hawker Tempest...

[Andre B]

Concerning the Hawker Tempest in 1/72.

 

Is there any kitmaker out there today who also make or provide the sky fuselage band as an decal today?

Or do I have to paint this band? 

 

I am for the moment working on an old Matchbox Tempest Mk.II and have come to the conclusion that I would have started painting the sky fuselage band and masked it before painting the camouflage.

I tought I had an decal somewhere but no...

 

Cheers / André

Edited June 18, 2018 by Andre B

[Seawinder]

IMHO you're better off painting the stripe anyway. You should be able to do it whether or not you've already painted the fuselage.

[Andre B]

51 minutes ago, Seawinder said:

IMHO you're better off painting the stripe anyway. You should be able to do it whether or not you've already painted the fuselage.

The big problem is that the sky fuselage band is very close to the tailplane in 1/72 scale making it difficult to mask. That's why it's good to paint and mask the band at an early stage in the build before assembling the tailplane and painting the camouflage...

 

Cheers / André

[Seawinder]

Agreed, but even it there's only a fraction of an inch between the stripe and the tail plane, you should be able to start with a very thin strip of tape and then gradually build up the mask aft-ward. Not ideal, of course, but if everything else is already painted, probably the lesser of two evils.

[MilneBay]

My technique is to paint the general area Sky first then mask it off starting with some very thin strips to define the line, these are easier to conform to the fuselage curves than wider strips. I then fill with tape the central unmask part and apply the camouflage. After the paint has dried I give the area a light polish with wet very very worn sand paper to polish off any masking ridges in the paint. Overall a painted fuselage band looks far better than a decal - especially as it matches the Sky paint used elsewhere on the model. 

[Andre B]

9 minutes ago, MilneBay said:

My technique is to paint the general area Sky first then mask it off starting with some very thin strips to define the line, these are easier to conform to the fuselage curves than wider strips. I then fill with tape the central unmask part and apply the camouflage. After the paint has dried I give the area a light polish with wet very very worn sand paper to polish off any masking ridges in the paint. Overall a painted fuselage band looks far better than a decal - especially as it matches the Sky paint used elsewhere on the model. 

Mmm...

The thing is that the sky fuselage band didn't always match the sky letters or sky spinner. Or even sky painted undersides on aircraft's.

 

Even Airfix decals (letters and sky bands) don't match Humbrol sky 91 where for an example  Xtradecal letters match Xtracolor's sky.

 

But I found sky fuselage band decals for Hawker Typhoon and with those I can make bands for my Tempest that also fit the fin...

 

Cheers / André