How the HECK can I paint this graphic on this nose cone?

[Marc_G]

Folks,

This is in reference to Project Red Queen. Build thread here.


I want to put the Umbrella Corporation logo onto the nose cone of the rocket. The nose cone is a Big Bertha style round nose cone. The logo, flattened, is eight triangles with white borders:





So, applied to the nose cone, I want it to actually look like an umbrella. But how? The cone is currently painted white. The project is using acrylic airbrush paints (Wicked and Auto Air are what I have).

Maybe use thin strips of masking tape to mask off the white borders, then one section at a time, mask everything except the red and gray (or black-bordered white) areas, and spray them?

And the arc at the outer edge of each triangular piece. Oh my...

Anybody got good ideas? Other than a brute force approach, I'm thinking this is going to be the hardest paint job I've ever done.

 

[Marc_G]

A further note:

I do have trim Monokote, but I'm thinking the complex curvature of applying to the cone would result in wrinkles, so simply cutting out eight wedges (with base arcs) probably won't work. I do have a spare nose cone, that I can use for tests of techniques.

 

[foamy]

Marc, I don't see any easy outs. I'd start with a white nose cone, do your grey fades, then mask the red panels. A pin-striping brush or long bristled sign painting brush would be easiest for the white outlines. Sign painters "One Shot" is the paint for the job. Load the brush.

Practice with the brush. Maintaining even pressure over a curved surface is difficult. Or, maybe that's where the Monokote comes into play.

Perhaps, a paint pen.

Sorry I couldn't be more help, but that would be my approach.

 

[Green Jello]

Edit: Nevermind

 

[Marc_G]

After doing some test playing around with my spare cone, I have decided to get some thin white pinstriping from an auto store tomorrow. And some skinnier masking tape; most narrow I have is 1/4".

I think it will basically be a job of careful masking of a wedge, sealing edges, spraying (once or perhaps in multiple passes to get a mottled effect), then moving on...

 

[JohnCoker]

Complex masking and painting of a plastic nose can be a frustrating experience. Make sure you clean the part thoroughly and use a plastic prep product so that your masking tape doesn't peel up the paint layer below.

The finest lines are made with Scotch (clear) tape. Another useful technique is to spray on a bit of the underlying color after masking to seal the edges and prevent the overlying color from bleeding under the tape.

 

[Marc_G]

Today I visited some auto parts stores. I was able to find 1/8" masking (3M, vinyl blue tape) and white 1/8" pinstriping. But really I need 1/16" tape, so I bought some online. $7 including shipping for Pactra 1/16" stuff. With luck it will be here by the weekend. Will save me trying to cut 1/8" tape in half lengthwise with precision.

Meanwhile, I'm working on the rest of the paint job on the rocket...

 

[Marc_G]

Here is a pic showing the "extra" (unpainted) nose cone marked at 8 points around the base:



I used the Estes marking guide to put four marks on a BT60 scrap, then on a piece of tape marked two of those points, and measured halfway, marking the mid point. After I transferred the four original tick marks to the cone, corresponding to the marks from the guide, I rotated the cone until one of the ticks hit the midway point on the tape, and marked four new tick marks based on the marks on the body tube. Bingo bango, my test cone now has marks showing the start point for each of the 8 wedge sections. I will put 8 additional marks on, about 1/16" offset from these once I get the fine line masking tape, so that placement of the tape strips will be obvious.

Marc

 

[Marc_G]

The masking tape arrived!



I should be able to work on this project, this weekend!

 

[Marc_G]

Major progress this weekend.

It started with marking 8 pairs of tick marks around the nose cone. The pairs were separated by the width of the masking tape.



I then carefully applied the masking, being careful about keeping it straight by stretching it out just a bit then pulling it over the nose tip. On such a blunt cone, it's not completely obvious exactly where the center is, but after a couple attempts I think I got it right.



After the first two were on, the other two were easy.



I then wrapped some Tamiya tape around the base, to serve as the outer edge of the color areas, though I'll be putting curved cut areas over it:



After looking at it I decided I needed to shrink the color area so I did a wrap with thicker tape:



Next, I needed a template to cut some curved pieces of tape. I'd pay a lot for the right template, but fortunately I just needed a nickel.





At this point I sealed all the edges with some Wicked Transparent Base. This looks white but dries clear.

I then masked off the ones that will be red eventually, and sealed the new masking with transparent base.

 

[Marc_G]

Using Wicked Opaque White just a drop of Wicked Black, I mixed up some gray and sprayed it on:



Then when that had set up a bit I sprayed just a bit of pure white over the middle.



Using a hair dryer on medium, I dried the paint and then gave it a few minute to sit. Then I removed the masking on the soon to be red areas:



I masked over the gray areas, sealed with transparent base, and sprayed red on. Two coats, with hair drying in between.



After the second coat of red was dry, I mixed some black into some red, and sprayed the middle section of the red wedges:



Delicate unmasking...



Then I star tin with the India ink pen:

 

[Marc_G]

Very delicate unmasking:






Yes, there are some warts on it, particularly from difficulties with the pen following the tape lines, but from a foot away no problems show up.

I did have one spot where the thin tape pulled the white off:



This wasn't tragic; I filled it in with light touch and a fine paint brush.

 

[les]

nice job

 

[Voxels]

That's one impressive paint job!

 

[bradycros]

That's a very practical approch to getting the results you were after. The posts documenting your thoughts and efforts were done very well also.

I like what you've done.

 

[Marc_G]

Thanks. The perfectionist in me wants to take another stab at it with my spare cone, but it was a lot of work to do the first one, and though I've learned a lot and could do better with a second try, it's just not worth it.

This was very much fun, though, and I will take what I learned and apply it to a future project. Thanks for your support and compliments!

Marc

 

[foamy]

Not bad at all! Seal it up good and proper.