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Swirl finish on metal panels


Peter Roberts

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Some WW1 aircraft had a swirl effect on natural metal panels. I'm not confident replicating this in paint.

 

Have there been any decals done to help with this?

 

Scale? 1/48? 1/32?

Edited by Peter Roberts
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13 minutes ago, Peter Roberts said:

Some WW1 aircraft had a swirl effect on natural metal panels. I'm not confident replicating this in paint.

 

Have there been any decals done to help with this?

 

Scale? 1/48? 1/32?

Ive seen some use a piece of fine grit (1500 or higher) cut into a circle and glued on an eraser. Then the pattern done on bare metal foil. Not sure if it would work on a WW1 plane but it worked quite nicely on a Spirit of St.Louis and some 1930’s racers. 

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About 7 years ago I tried to make my own decals.   Since the machined characteristic is the area with greater shine, I printed out the negative area in grey onto clear decal film.   The location on the model was pre-painted with aluminum paint.  

 

406903324.jpg

 

The pattern I was going for was more loose, not very rigid like the St.Louis:

406889322.jpg

 

 

406912378.jpg

 

407041853.jpg

 

regards,

Jack

Edited by JackG
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Hello Peter,  thanks!   

Yes, was going after a looser style like on this Eindecker:

fdavvfa.jpg

 

Am guessing you want something like on a Camel:

X003-2602-14880.jpg

 

The pattern is very strict, so would be ideal to design on the computer.   Either method though (decal or foil), would be difficult to manage over compound curves?

 

regards,

Jack

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Somebody here built a 1/72 Spirit of St. Louis where the cowl engine turning was replicated with silver paint marker dots over a darker metallic colour.  Looked great to me. 

 

I think a method that allows for finer resolution would be better in a larger scale.

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Yes, looking for a tighter pattern for a 1/48 BE-2A.

 

I'll have an experiment with sand paper/wet and dry on foil. Got a bit of spare time at the moment, living here in Melbourne (Australia) :) 

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On 8/22/2020 at 1:30 AM, JackG said:

About 7 years ago I tried to make my own decals.   Since the machined characteristic is the area with greater shine, I printed out the negative area in grey onto clear decal film.   The location on the model was pre-painted with aluminum paint.  

 

406903324.jpg

 

The pattern I was going for was more loose, not very rigid like the St.Louis:

406889322.jpg

 

 

regards,

 

Jack

That’s a marvelous Albatros :) And I shall file away that trick with the decals, so I can try one day. I guess an unstructured pattern makes it easier to cover complex surfaces since a regular pattern would require a perfect fit, in practice meaning some trial-and-error.

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Actually I did attempt to create decals of the required shapes, though the cowl area did require a final trim once the decal had set:

 

406903323.jpg

 

1.  Master patterns are made of the aluminum areas using Tamiya yellow tape, followed by a scan and imported to the paint program.

2. Large background created of the 'machined aluminum' pattern.

3.  A  mask is created (orange) of the scanned tape shapes.

4.  The white portion is copied and pasted over the pattern.   A final crop (not shown) and is ready to print onto clear decal film.

 

regards,

Jack

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13 hours ago, JohnHaa said:

Maybe this topic is of some use ?

 

With kind regards

 

JohnHaa

 

 

 

Thank you John. I think I get the jist of it. The machining was done by hand, with the brush chucked in a dremel?

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Peter,

 

 Yes, I made a tool myself. 

 

Take a piece of aluminum tube ( 0.014) , in it, you place thin copper wires and secure them with some AC glue . First time use it on a piece of sandpaper to get a smooth  tip and your tool is ready for use  👍

 

Regards

 

JohnHaa

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6 hours ago, Peter Roberts said:

What are you using to print your decals Jack?

Printer wise I used an inkjet type (specifically Cannon iP4300) and clear decal film from Micro-Mark.   Before cutting up the printed decals,  they were sealed with a few sprayed layers of clear gloss, the first one being very light to avoid rejuvenating the printed ink.

 

I still had problems when  soaking the decals in water, with some edges bleeding if trimmed too close.  Since it is clear film this can be avoided by leaving close to half mm or so around the printed image, but then you have the decal edge to contend with.  

 

regards,

Jack

Edited by JackG
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Try experimenting with the painting.  it might be easier than you think.

 

1. prime the cowl, etc. with black.

2. fine tipped silver sharpie (or molotow chrome pen) and put your dots/squiggles over the black paint.

3. thin your aluminium paint of choice and lightly spray thin coats over the top until you get the effect you like.

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I doubt it. Metal panels which are hand made are formed on a wheeling machine.

A big C shaped machine with a wheel above and another below the sheet metal. The worker feeds the sheet metal back and forth to shape it. The wheels can be changed for making different profiles.

The swirlies are made by a special machine tool. As well as looking decorative the swirls were actually made in the aluminium to work-harden it. That's why you only see it on aluminium panels of WW1 types and not on steel. On later subjects its just decorative as the metal is an aluminium-magnesium alloy which is much harder

773107be0e5ebdef6b8f075f3637a742.jpg

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On 9/8/2020 at 12:41 AM, RobStewart said:

Try experimenting with the painting.  it might be easier than you think.

 

1. prime the cowl, etc. with black.

2. fine tipped silver sharpie (or molotow chrome pen) and put your dots/squiggles over the black paint.

3. thin your aluminium paint of choice and lightly spray thin coats over the top until you get the effect you like.

I have done that, but found it tricky to get it in scale (1/72).

Edited by Torbjorn
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Ditto, I picked up a extra fine tip silver marker way back when, and the bead it lays down is well over a millimeter in diameter. 

 

A guesstimate that at 1/48, it would require not more than 0.35mm dots of silver to replicate the cowl pattern on a Camel.    If and when I ever return to the project, I would try printing out the required pattern on paper, and then lay that over some Tamiya tape and begin pricking holes through this with a sewing needle.  The perforated tape would then serve as a spray mask.

 

regards,

Jack

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