1:144 Paint mask Tu-160 (ZVE)

The White Swan with a variable-sweep wing

The Tupolev Tu-160 is a supersonic heavy bomber with a variable-sweep wing which first flew on 18 December 1981 and entered service in 1987. Four NK-32 engines with afterburners made it the heaviest combat aircraft ever to fly, with a takeoff weight of around 275 tons. For its slender white silhouette it earned the nickname White Swan, while in Western coding it appears as the Blackjack.

What the mask solves

In 1:144 scale the cockpit of such a giant measures barely a few millimeters and its glazing has several separate sections. Cutting them from tape with a knife means working with shapes one millimeter wide, where a small deviation shows in the result at once. A pre-die-cut mask shortens this part of the build from tens of minutes to a few.

The procedure is straightforward. First wash the clear part and let it dry completely, transfer the shapes with the point of a toothpick or with tweezers and press them down from the center toward the edges. Apply the base coat under the varnish in a thin layer only, because a heavy layer lifts the edge of the mask and the paint bleeds precisely in the corners, where repair is hardest.

Once the camouflage is finished, take the mask off and lightly polish away any haze with a soft cloth. The glazing will then stay clear and the frames will have a straight edge along their whole length.

There is one more thing about the appearance of the subject that is worth taking into account when painting. The surface of the machine is covered in anti-flash white, which in photographs comes across as pure whiteness but in reality has a hint of gray and gets noticeably dirty on the panels. A dazzling white model therefore looks like a toy, whereas a slightly grayed tone with darker joints captures reality far better.