1:700 Gneisenau 1940 Painting Mask (Flyhawk FH1149)

Flyhawk 1:700 masking set, Gneisenau 1940

An accessory for ship modelers in 1:700 scale from the Flyhawk brand. The package holds pre-cut masks with which you spray the deck areas and the areas separated by color on a model of the German battleship Gneisenau as she was in 1940, without laborious masking with tape. The set is cut for the kit from the same maker, which has to be bought separately. On a ship of this size it means tens of meters of edges that would take a whole evening to mask with tape.

The real subject

The Gneisenau, together with her sister the Scharnhorst, was the fastest large ship in the Kriegsmarine. In 1940 and 1941 both ships made sorties into the Atlantic against Allied convoys and in February 1942 they broke back through the English Channel to home waters. Shortly afterwards the Gneisenau was badly damaged in an air raid at Kiel and took no further part in the fighting. Models of the two sister ships are therefore built in two rather different forms, and the mask is tied to the one of 1940.

Use

• clean and degrease the surface of the model, because a mask will not hold on a greasy surface
• transfer the masks with tweezers and press the edges down carefully
• spray in thin coats at right angles to the edge of the mask
• take the mask off while the paint is dry to the touch only
• correct any small leaks with a fine brush before varnishing
• seal the finished spray work with varnish and only then go on to the next steps

The set is meant for modelers who build a ship model with an emphasis on clean painting. The kit and the paints are not included in the package, unless stated otherwise.