FalconWings

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Hi,

I'm looking for a skilled painter who can paint my Yellow P-47 cowling with white/red diagonal (diamond) checkers (picture attached). I can paint alright, but checkers beat the crap out of me.

If interested, please PM me your availability and if possible, pictures of your work.

Thanks,
David

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

David,

Good luck

I tried posting the same thing on this site as well as other sites with no success. If I ever hear anything I will let you know. Might just end up painting mine on my own. I will copy info that I received from SB and paste it here for you later in case you decide to give it a shot.

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Here ya go David,-



"when i did mine.....like you.....first time at doing this....my mind boggled....but once complete it was one of the most satisfying paint jobs i've done.......the cowl was spray white to start with then using a soft pencil and the cowl set up horizontal i marked the concentric lines as a guide......then with 5mm Tamiya tape masked a few squares at a time and sprayed them.....no it's not easy.....but rewarding......that's my 2 pence worth...."


"I'll echo xxxx offering. It's something that takes patience more than skill.For me the most difficult was finding (fudging) the proper placement of the black checkers.
As stated I painted the cowl white first. When you paint checkers paint every OTHER line of black. It's much easier to get your "register" of checkers correct."

"The instructions for the checkers are; 8 inches wide by 7 inches tall. This line starts approx 46 inches back from the lip of the cowl. As you move forward the checks are closer to 7x7 inches due to the decreasing radius of the cowl. All checks were parallel to the main axis of the fuse.
Note that the cowl panels were removable. Each panel had rows of three white and three black checkers.
Also the 78th used RAF colors for their repainted planes. RAF dark green was the top color and Sky was the bottom color.
The planes also had the Large Star and Bar on the bottom left wing.
Hope this helps."

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

Thanks so much for sharing! I had posted before to no success. Its like, I'm paying!! Haha.....anyway

My other trick was going to be to buy a 1/32 P-47 decal set with the checker pattern and bump to 1/6th with photoshop, and turn it into a vinyl mask.
Problem is Im not sure how much the vinyl would stretch.

This is tough 😁

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

No prob, glad I can help..


Or you can get a little creative and order graphics from calliegraphics like I did

http://callie-graphics.com/airplanes.php

They will sell you just the checkers but I purchased the nomenclature set as well.

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Have not tried them yet but so far looks like it will work just fine



Cant do anything until I install the plywood former for the dummy engine to help make it more rigid

When you order just tell them the WS and it will scale it out for you. Also, the checkers are individual black checkers so they will form to the contour.....now all you have to do is paint your cowl white add the checkers and BAM!!

TimD.

My Feedback: (207)

You can check with Jeremy Ferguson aka LMX graphics he is in Canada but his work is TOP Notch.

samparfitt

My Feedback: (43)

Something I copied and saved a long time ago:

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

Thanks Sam, that's awesome!

Avaiojet

Be a lot easier to just do it in vinyl. I could do it but would need the cowling. My guess is, nothing in the above photos will work.

Each row has to be laid out individually. Quite a task to get it correct.

Charles

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Mine are made out of vinyl and you can cut each row individually.... after you do the layout on the cowling (reference line), use blue painters tape on your reference line with ticks to mark the spacing then you lay the black checkers just like you would do with rivets...apply the same way.

Exception being no need to burnish the checkers like you do when you apply the tape over the rivets this already has the tape on top of the checkers and most importantly there is no chance to bleed through with the colors getting underneath the tape when you paint.

It is possible to paint without getting paint underneath the tape but it requires a lot of work, patience and a lot of time and I think that is why some people like myself do not want to do the work. For me the issue is not not being able to do it, it's the patience to do it, and using the vinyl is the fastest and easiest way in my opinion other than just writing somebody else out a check

Anyhow that's how I plan on doing mine

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

Thank you all. Got a hold of Jeremy, he's up to the the task. His price was not bad at all (for a pro!).

bfair67

Not as hard as you think

Spray cowl with the Red (entire Cowl) Painted on several coats of Bob Dively Liquid Masking Film with a foam brush, make it as smooth as you can. Draw with pen your diamond shape checker board pattern, then proceed to cut every other Diamond out with an xacto blade (once you cut along the lines of a diamond the diamond peels off very easily) After you peel off every other diamond (you have think like 3 times before you cut to make sure it's every other one). Then respray the cowl with the black, after it drys peel of the remaining rubber diamonds and there's your red and black checker board cowl.

Good luck

Bill

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Nice job Bill!