Steve Riley takes a look at Hard-edge Camouflage Painting Masks from TANK, handy sheets of pre-cut self-adhesive masks specifically for hard-edge camo patterns on AFVs.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Before I say to much on this product I have a couple of questions.
Are they a use once a throw away product?
Would they work at a point where 3 angles converge as opposed to two?
What price is the product? or expected price as I have never seen this before.
How easily did they conform to a shaped surface as opposed to a flat surface?
Thank you in advance.

Hi Darren,




Afrer peeling them off the model post-spraying, I found that some of them seemed to be quite OK to use again, while others weren't. As far as I'm aware, they're not marketed as one thing or the other.




I tried that and they worked OK with a little extra "persuasion".




I paid EUR 3.95 per sheet from my German e-tailer (see review). No idea as to GBP or US$ prices - sorry. They were new to me also, so I thought I'd give 'em a go.




See review.

HTH. Cheers,

- Steve

Interesting product if my favourite online shops start to stock them I'll try out a set.

thanks for the review. these look interesting enough, and could save some good time instead of (as stated in the review) use blutack or the likes. shame not all of the parts are re-usable.

Steve I took a close look at the finished model and read the review for the third time. Looking at the finished model it would appear from the finished model that you avoided points where the masks would have to conform to 3 faces coming together. Ref the shaped surface I can see where you have used the mask but I could not find the portion of text that refers directly to how easy or difficult it was to get the mask to conform to the shape without creasing or lifting.

Thank you for the answers to my other questions.

hmmm, call me a curmudgeon, but I'll save my bucks and keep on making my own masks, which would then also be custom to the model.

I use painter's tape (green or blue, always low tack) which I trim or even just tear with my hands to the shape that I'm looking for. If I see I need to tweak the mask's coverage, I often just take a wee little piece to modify the mask wherever I want. Spray, tear off, voila! With money in my pocket still.

Interesting concept tho'! Likely an advantage somewhere I simply don't recognize.

Looks like it would be better to leave all complicated corners or joints for the final color which you don't have to mask for.

That of course is one way of doing it .




Not at all, Alex. Each to their own. Whatever works for you.

@Darren: I did try out the "three faces" thing on a old Sherman hulk and I got the thing to settle on that okay. Obviously where it's just two faces it's far easier, but I did manage to place it with a bit of extra coaxing and pressing. I should have taken a photo perhaps. Sorry about that (an oversight on my part).

Re your question about how hard it was to get the masks to conform to the shape of the surface without lifting, in not quite sure what you mean by that, as I thought this part of the review covered it:




But to clarify, the masks behaved themselves very well once they were in place. There were a few points of very minor lift at the edges, but all I did there was go round the whole lot pressing gently with the tip of my finger immediately prior to spraying to make sure the edges were nice and tight against the model. That did the trick.

Possibly with repeat use, "edge lift" would become more of an issue as the stickiness becomes increasingly compromised each time the masks are removed, put back and then removed again. But only time (and repeat use) will answer that one. These were just my initial experiences that I thought might be of interest to The Panel, as this appears to be a very new product, and I could find no previous mention of it on Armorama.

Creasing or wrinking wasn't a problem.

Hope that helps.

- Steve

These seem very usefull,

Are the different sets all generic, or are they for specific vehicles?

Generic, Marc.

Some of the sheets are probably useful for aircraft also.

Thank you for the clarification Steve on what is an unusual product, I wonder if the company that makes the wheel masks will follow up with a product like this.

Does anybody know any european shop that sells this masks? I´ve been trying to find one, but without any luck

Jesper

I agree with Alex I use blue painters tape cut r torn to my liking. Does anyone have a photo of a kit that this stuff was used on?

Anyone sell these in the States?

At first glance, it sounds attractive but maybe costly... It seems a bit of guilding the lilly.

It looks to me like you might need a new set for each different vehicle you did, as scheme-scale differs among vehicle types and between scales. That, and patterns differ between nations...

Also - (this may have emerged elsewhere this thread) how reusable are these masks? If one gets only one vehicle per most sets, it would add substantially to the cost.

I'm a blue tape dino!