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Masking with Silly Putty

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RELATED TOPICS: PAINTING
Painting the wavy, multicolored camouflage schemes common on armored vehicles can be a pain, but I recently discovered an inexpensive, easy-to-use masking substance: Silly Putty. Silly Putty? Yep, same stuff we played with as kids, pulling images of the Sunday comics off the paper and stretching them into goofy faces. Turns out it can be an armor modeler's best friend, at least when painting time rolls around.

Silly Putty has a number of great advantages for masking armor models....
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11 COMMENTS
Added 7 years ago
mike phillips
just starting back to modeling, working on WWII US Navy models, carriers, and such, also a model of the sea view (yeah fantasy) any good areas to research the old Navy ship paint colors, I'm no purist I do want to get as close as possible to true colors,
Added 11 years ago
ROBERT FUQUA II
After reading this, I tried water-based (not oil-based) Oatey Plumber's Putty. IT WORKS, BUT DOESN'T PULL-OFF CLEAN AND MAKES A MESS!

I've GOT to get some silly putty! Good tip. :)
Added 14 years ago
BOB WOOD
I will be useing this idea on aircraft. I also read some where that it works great on masking canopys. I am just getting back into modeling after 30 years and this a great source for ideas.
Added 14 years ago
KEITH FLYNN
never thought about trying silly putty . i live in england can you tell
me what is the english version of silly putty. great magazine i have
been collecting it for about 18 years now . so you must be doing something right
Added 14 years ago
STEVEN KUBIK
I've been using Silly Putty for years for masking, especially for the three tone camoflage. THe ony issue that I had with it was pressing too hard on PE - it would sometimes lift the PE off. Just don't press the putty down too hard on the etch and it works great.

Steve
Added 15 years ago
M EDWARDS
Im building Lindbergs Minesweeper in 1/125 scale (My Grandfather served on the Garland #238) an am using it to do the measure 32 camo scheme. Ive always tried the tape or hand-paint method before on my 1/350 collection and was not satisfied,...Had never thought of even trying this on ships, mostly seen it on aircraft,...but hey!! this works oh so good!

Great tip,..thank you much
Added 15 years ago
KEVIN WOOLRIDGE
great help,
Added 15 years ago
GLENN BARBER
what kind of putty is the easist to work with and is goog.thanks
Added 15 years ago
TIMOTHY MUELLER
I tried this and found that there was a little degradation in putty when I used it with testors rattle cans. It was minimal, but it made for a little messy cleanup. However, since I used a knock off brand of putty I'm thinking that may have been a factor. Next time I will try actual Silly Putty and see. But otherwise it worked GREAT. BTW, I used it to mask off an open cockpit in a Battlestar Galactica viper. It worked worlds better than trying to mask it off with tape.
Added 15 years ago
Guest
I think that this would be great for the camo on an F-16I Sufa.
Added 15 years ago
RAY MAKGILL
very excellent,a great help
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