1:700 HMS Ajax 1939 Painting Mask (Flyhawk FH1110)

Flyhawk 1:700 masking set, HMS Ajax 1939

An accessory for ship modelers in 1:700 scale from the Flyhawk brand. The package contains pre-cut masks with which you spray the deck areas and the color-separated areas of a model of the British light cruiser HMS Ajax as she was in 1939. The set is cut for a kit from the same manufacturer, which has to be bought separately. The pre-cut shapes follow the real outline of the decks, so there is no tracing and no laborious blocking out with tape. On a cruiser at this scale these are lines only a few centimeters long, where work by hand can hardly be done straight.

The real subject

HMS Ajax was a light cruiser of the Leander class with eight 152 millimeter guns. In December 1939, together with two other cruisers, she fought the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee at the mouth of the River Plate. The British ships took damage, but they forced their opponent to take refuge in Montevideo, where the crew decided to scuttle her. It is this action that gave Ajax her place in history.

Use

• clean and degrease the surface of the model; a mask will not hold on a greasy area
• move the masks with tweezers and press the edges down carefully
• spray in thin coats, square on to the edge of the mask
• lift the mask off while the paint is only dry to the touch
• correct any small bleeds with a fine brush before varnishing

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