yak54

Can anyone advise how to mark out and paint a check pattern on a P47 cowl (78th fighter group black & white checks).

Yak54.

da Rock

The P47 is an ARF and the workers placed black squares of something on a white painted cowl. The last checkerboard I did was done with squares of masking tape. Spray paint the black and when dry, peel out the tape squares.

After doing that for years......... The Corsair cowling was done with UltraCote. You can buy checkerboard. Red/white, blue/white, black/white comes in different size checkerboards.

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

I don't know how many checks there are, if you have a picture to follow, it isn't difficult, but it is time consuming. Paint the cowl white first. Since the cowl isn't perfectly round and has a lot of compound curve, the checks aren't exactly square. Start at the rear edge and make a line around the cowl a set distance from the edge (this distance will become the size of the square. Make anothe mark the same distance from the first mark, then another, until you have a series of concentric circles around the cowl from back to front. The last row may not be the same as the others unless you're lucky, or the scale scheme was worked out that way.

Now, find the centerline at the top of the cowl back to front (including around the forward "lip"). The next marks will not be exactly parallel to the first one, but should pass through an imaginary "slice" through the center axis of the cowl, each square starting at the rear of the cowl will be a bit more even at the rear than the front. It may take some fiddling to get the pattern like you want it, mark it in pencil. Once the pattern suits you, mask the squares you want to remain white, then spray the black. Remove the masking, and there you go.

yak54

Thanks for the replies, i'll have another go at marking it out and see how it goes.

Yak54.