Oramask has anyone tried it?

[Lightningboy2000]

Has anyone tried using Oramask masking film?

I saw somewhere that a certain model camouflage masking firm uses it.

Just wondering if anyone else has purchased sheets or rolls of it & tried masking on models with it. Obviously for hard edges, but apparently it's very low tak, but how low tak & how often can it be applied?

Can anyone say what it's like?

 

Martin

 

 

[Giorgio N]

I use the Oramask 810 a lot, mainly cut using my Silhouette plotter.

IMHO it's great stuff, very low tack but stays in place with no problem and can be pressed well into panel lines to prevent the paint from bleeding along them. It is very thin and follows well the curves of a small fighter fuselage in 1/72 scale. in case of sharp corners though better use two separate pieces.

It can be reused but I'm not sure if it's possible to use the same mask more than twice..

One aspect I don't like is that it doesn't cut well with a punch, the material is too flexible and the edges if cut this way are not clean. Still, this is a minor annoyance and I've used this material to make masks of all kind, from canopies to codes to full camouflage schemes.

Last but not least, it's cheap (around £ 1 per an A4 sheet) and I can order it from a shop that's 400 m from home...

Mind: my experience is with Oramask 810, there are other products from the same range but I've not tried them.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Giorgio N

[Lightningboy2000]

1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

I use the Oramask 810 a lot, mainly cut using my Silhouette plotter.

IMHO it's great stuff, very low tack but stays in place with no problem and can be pressed well into panel lines to prevent the paint from bleeding along them. It is very thin and follows well the curves of a small fighter fuselage in 1/72 scale. in case of sharp corners though better use two separate pieces.

It can be reused but I'm not sure if it's possible to use the same mask more than twice..

One aspect I don't like is that it doesn't cut well with a punch, the material is too flexible and the edges if cut this way are not clean. Still, this is a minor annoyance and I've used this material to make masks of all kind, from canopies to codes to full camouflage schemes.

Last but not least, it's cheap (around £ 1 per an A4 sheet) and I can order it from a shop that's 400 m from home...

Mind: my experience is with Oramask 810, there are other products from the same range but I've not tried them.

Thanks Giorgio, it's just that I've found some on eBay & I can't remember who, but a manufacturer uses Oramask for WW2 camo such as Spits & Hurri's.

I've started a Fencer & the challenge is to mask & airbrush the digital scheme.

I have purchased a mask set by Foxbot for it but they've complicated the design by putting each mask within each colour layer on the same A4 sheet, which would mean re-applying certain layers of the mask within other other layers. 

I'll most likely cut it out by hand.

Thanks for your help, sounds good & I'll have a look around.

Also a silhouette plotter sounds like a handy tool, never used one before. I guess I can get it to cut out vector lines from an Illustrator drawing? Just never tried it before.

Thanks

Martin

[Giorgio N]

Yes, the Silhouette cutter works like that: you can draw a series of vector lines and shapes with their software or import files generated with other packages and it will cut these lines according to the chosen settings. There are plug-ins for Corel Draw for sure, don't know if there are for other softwares. Personally I generate the drawings with Corel and then export the files as DXF format, then import with the free software of the machine, resize if needed and then cut. I could buy the plug-in but never really felt the need. Mind, Silhouette is not the only manufacturer of these cutters, there are a few discussions in this same forum, may be worth checking them before purchasing one.

As with all new toys, it takes a while to get all settings right but once this is done and if using the right materials you can get pretty good results. Most of my recent models have seen some use of masks I cut with this tool.

For things like camouflage masks I often use kabuki-style paper, for the rest today is Oramask 810 all along. I also use this if I have to cut small masks, as this material is easier to cut in smal sizes than the paper and retains smaller details much better.