The product for review today is J's Work Airbrush Camo-Mask for KT, 1/35th, Henschel Turret, Camouflage Scheme 2. First off, I'm not going to get into the discussion on how "accurate" this pattern is, which tank companies may have used it, if it can be used for Hard/Soft edge camouflage. I'm here to review the ease of use and possible benefits or draw backs this may have for the model maker that would like to use this product in future.
Review
J's Work has come up with this idea for those painters that feel masking a tank off is too much of a pain and too time consuming. Well, judging from the look of this product, that maybe true. We shall see.
The material used for this mask comes on two sheets of laser cut or punched painters tape. The main sheet is for the hull and sides. A center piece has "Front" typed in it so the user knows which way the mask is to be placed on the kit. The letters "B" Red brown, "G" Dark green, "Y" Dark yellow are also printed on the page. These letters are on both sheets. These are to let the user know the colors to be used according to the User Guide.
The second sheet is for the turret and the gun barrel. Again, "front" is printed on these also so the painter knows which way is up.
The User Guide is printed on a single piece of heavy paper to help protect the mask from being bent during shipping. The whole thing is wrapped in plastic with a flap on the bottom so you can reseal it. I have no idea why that is when you’re going to toss it after you use it. I'm not sure how many uses you can get out of the mask before the tape starts not to stick any more.
Now, it’s at this time I'd like to point out that if Airbrushing is not your cup of tea, then this product could be used if one chooses to Hand paint their models.
Also, J's Work does not say what kit, Tamiya, Dragon, Academy, AFV Club, this would be best suited for, therefore we can "assume" that this would be a "one size fits all" product.
Now as for easy of use, looks easy enough to understand just by viewing the User Guide. Placing the mask on to a kit looks to be straight forward, place sheet on hull, fold, press down sides, paint, repeat.
SUMMARY
Highs: Easy to use. Press, fold, paint, repeat. Lows: Not sure how many kits this fits. One size fits all?
Value: $6.99 for one shot verses roll of painters tape at Home Depot $3.64. No contest.
Verdict: Personally, for $6.99 and one shot, a roll of painters tape goes further. Call me old school. Just my opinion.
Good idea and I might consider it if I was doing production work.
Our Thanks to Js Work! This item was provided by them for the purpose of having it reviewed on this KitMaker Network site. If you would like your kit, book, or product reviewed, please contact us.
About Brian Culbertson (BigfootV) FROM: COLORADO, UNITED STATES
Retried Long Haul Truck Driver, currently attending Culinary school in Denver. Construction for 15 yrs., Drummer for 10 yrs. away from work. Married, one child, 20 yr old with Autism.
Model builder since 1977. Started with 1/48 aircraft, WW2, lost interest. Toyed around with other scales, then fou...
I used the masks for the meng tiger. the material is very similar to Tamiya tape. sticks well, and conforms to small details with burnishing. I did it back to front, as I had already undercoated the tiger in Russian green. it's a good idea, but there were many issues as I found the masks were either too big, or didn't match the references. much cheaper to use silly putty/blue tack/panzer putty in my opinion.
Hi Brian ... great review ... I have to agree that I'm not sure about this one ..First of all (I will talk about accuracy) it looks nothing like the factory applied camo at least not like any I have seen ... So you could use masking tape and get the same results..
I was the first to say how cool to have stencils to do a BoB KT with the hard edge scheme, but nope ..didn't happen . I guess it'll be silly putty for me (one day)
thanks for the review
Rick
How would you get this stuff to lay over raised details,like track hangers,tools and so forth,those would be a pain to add after painting,this doesn't seem to be real useful unlessvim missing something
Have just bought the scheme 1 mask set for the excellent Meng 1/35 FT-17 & regret to say it is garbage. This particular scheme has 3 colours with wavy black demarcation lines between all colours. The whole mask set is way over scale, the shapes are about 30% larger than the model & the black demarcation lines between the colours are about double the thickness seen period photos. At first I thought I had received the 1/16 scale version in error but that comes on 3 sheets, the 1/35 is on 1 sheet as received. The masks are precut in 4 areas on a single sheet but only the largest area for the hull has an orientation arrow, the other areas have no indication of where they go or their orientation. The hull top masks also cover the turret but no allowance for the turret height is made. The instructions do not show what the right side patterns look like at all. The top & left side guide pictures of the instructions do not match where the patterns wrap around the corners & the top view even shows the tracks are camouflaged. In the end I cut the mask set up into wavy freehand strips & applied them based on photos of the real thing. The mask set itself is made of yellow kabuki tape & is reasonably priced. It would have been very useful if it had been designed to fit the intended kit & some care had been put into the instructions.
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