Silly Putty® Wheel Mask -- A Quick How-To by ChillyB

[Chillyb1]

I don't know whether this has ever come up before in your modeling lives, but I found a need to mask the center of a wheel painted one color while painting the rest of the wheel another color. This is what I came up with:

Using a drafting template, I first select a suitably sized circle:

Next, I use a small ball of Silly Putty® to fill in the circle equal to the thickness of the template:

Finally, apply that circle of Silly Putty® to the wheel, taking some care not to distort it too much in the process:

This is how they turned out last time I tried this:

[martinfan5]

Wow thats a really great idea, I am going to have to remember that, and those wheels look great

[george 53]

AFTER you spray over the SP, does it turn colors? or mix it back to it's original state? I wonder if it is used too many times does it wear out?

[Dr. Cranky]

Love the tip, it's perfect. I better stock up on the Silly Putty (registered trademark)!

[Erik Smith]

You can just mix the color in. I suppose after awhile you would need to replace it, but it's cheap.

By the way, lacquer paint will melt silly putty - I found that out spraying Tamiya semi gloss black on a chassis.

[Chillyb1]

AFTER you spray over the SP, does it turn colors? or mix it back to it's original state? I wonder if it is used too many times does it wear out?

I usually peel off as much of the paint skin as I can and throw that away. The rest of the putty and what little bit of paint is residual mixes together for reuse. I imagine there is a finite number of times one can do this, but I haven't reached that point so far with just two containers of putty in use.

By the way, lacquer paint will melt silly putty - I found that out spraying Tamiya semi gloss black on a chassis.

It doesn't melt it exactly, but it does make it really, really sticky and stringy.

So, I add this word of caution: Never, ever try to remove the putty before the paint is dry. And refrigerate the parts for a little bit before removing the putty because it comes off more easily when below room temperature.

[fatkidd]

thanks for sharing this wonderful tip.

now, I have to dig through my stash to find a set of wheels that need this treatment. Haha.

Does anyone know if urethanes (ie House of Kolor) will have the same effect as laquer?

[Chillyb1]

Here's how the wheels in the above thread turned out:

[Evil Appetite]

that's fantastic! I've tried using liquid masking but as fas as i'm concerend it's usuelss. This is great! I have a ton of wheels I'm gonna be doing this to !