1:48 Siebel Si-204E canopy airbrush mask

The real subject: the twin-engine Siebel

The Si 204 grew out of the small Fh 104 courier aircraft and turned into a universal machine for training pilots, radio operators and navigators. It was built mostly in factories on Czech territory, and after 1945 the Aero C-3 series was born from the unfinished airframes and served in training units long after the war. The E version was a trainer and differed from the older versions in the arrangement of the glazed nose.

What the masking film can do

The set is cut from self-adhesive film and follows the shape of the cockpit frames in 1:48 scale. The individual pieces are transferred with tweezers straight onto the clear molding, where they stick without leaving adhesive residue and mark out exactly the area that is to stay transparent. The frames are then sprayed together with the rest of the fuselage, so no step and no bleeding edges appear of the kind left behind by a strip of paper tape laid on by hand.

Glazing of this type has dozens of small panes and sticking strips on would take a whole evening; with pre-cut shapes the job is a matter of minutes and the right side looks the same as the left.

Before applying, it is worth cleaning the grease off the clear part and letting it dry completely. After spraying, the film is lifted with the tip of a knife or with tweezers, ideally while the paint has just dried and the edge has not yet hardened.

It pays to mask the frames from the inside as well and to spray the interior tone before the canopy is seated on the fuselage; the view inside is then not spoiled by a bare transparent molding. Once the film is lifted, the glass stays untouched, so polishing with sanding sponges and compound is unnecessary.