Covering with Colours

An additional challenge is covering two sides of the same thing with two different colors, especially contrasting colors. I still have a hard time getting the cut line perfect along the edge of things where I'm doing this. Here's the top of my Hellcat's fin/stab assembly.

... and here's the bottom.

OK, let's cover and detail a Miniflash wing.....

First of all, here's my color selection. These are all solite (of course). We have red, dark blue, transparent blue, white, silver, and olive green.

Since this wing is more than one base color, I want to make the joins between base colors straight. I just use a ruler to cut the covering to a straight line.

I've covered the leading edge of the wing, from the spar forward, with transparent blue.

The back half of the wing is white. Again, keep the edge straight by cutting it with a ruler. I chose to end my white at the end of the spar cap on the top of the wing and 1/8" ahead of the spar on the bottom. Changing colors at structural locations can make the structure that would otherwise stand out under the covering almost disappear!

Beyond the basic transparent blue and white, I just sort of did whatever came to mind - some of which based on pictures from other Miniflashes! I wanted a dark blue stripe to cover the join between the white and transparent blue (as the white shows the blue underneath it slightly). I cut a straight line on one side and then another straight line at an angle to make this tapered blue chunk. Yes, that really is blue - dark blue!

Here's part one of "Why we love solite's static cling"

I can lay the chunk in place and while not solidly there, it holds well enough to give me an idea of how it will look and allow me to trim it if I want to, This piece has been just laid down with the backing still on.

Peel the backing off of your stripe and carefully use that static cling to your advantage again. Use it to stick the covering down along ONE edge, making sure it's not producing wrinkles and is where you want it. Use the edge of your iron to stick this straight line down for about 1/8" worth of covering.

Here is a 2mb video showing how I use the butt end of the iron to stick down the remainder of the stripe. This will get rid of 95% of your bubble/wrinkle problems.

Use the above method of laying down a line and then sticking the rest if you have a line that needs to be in a certain location. I also included a sample of laying down a fuselage stripe from one end to the other.

For this wing, all of my striping was done the same way - using a ruler! The smallest striping I have is about 1/8" wide at the narrowest point. Just make sure you push down good on the ruler when cutting such that the knife doesn't pull the covering. Also make sure you're using a new blade.

Use your favorite method to peel the backing and once again use the static cling to stick this stuff in place. In this shot it's had no heat but holds beautifully.

This is the same silver stripe, but it has been wrapped around the leading edge. The sharp angular cut at the end was done before sticking it into place, and was done simply with the knife blade.

A few more stripes later, here's the final result. This is the top of the wing.

... and here is the bottom of the wing. The apparent color changes where the covering overlaps is due to solite being so thin. In this case, the transparent blue shows the red through it (naturally) and the red shows the silver through it slightly. Be careful to put on your darkest colors last unless you're going for a transparent effect.