how to apply foil to an aircraft model

7/22/2019 How to Apply Foil to an Aircraft Model

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always seemed an unrealizable dream. Always, that is, until recent years, now that a small but

ever burgeoning number of Fanatic Foil Freaks (FFFs) are working feverishly and diligently

towards making the dream a reality.

The real kicker is that the answer to our prayers had never been farther away than the nearest

kitchen cabinet all along. With a little help from a two-buck bottle of Microscale Foil Adhesive,all you need is a roll of cheap (the cheaper the better Ill get into this later) aluminum kitchen

wrap, a little practice and a whole lotta patience to have show-stopping NMF aircraft models that

will dazzle friends and family alike. As a fellow FFF on another website has so eloquently put it,

it looks like metal because it IS metal. Well, that says it all. Nothing looks more like aluminum

than aluminum. Accept no substitutes, folks.

OK. Thats the good news. The bad news is that the technique is rather difficult, always chancy

and often exasperating. But then, when did that combination of factors ever keep us frombuilding models, right?

2. WHAT YOU WILL NEEDCheap aluminum kitchen or cooking foil, mirror-finished on one side, dull on the other. You DO

NOT want the good quality Reynolds Wrap kind of stuff Mom used on those Christmas fruit

cakes. No, that stuff is practically armor plate compared with the aluminum foil I am using

(Toyo Arumi a product of resource-starved Japanese manufacture), which has a thickness of 8

microns (less than most painted surfaces). It is so flimsy it will rip if you look at it funny. Moral

of the story: cheaper quality is better because it is thinner, and the thinner the foil you use, the

better definition you are going to get to bring out all those good rivets, panel lines, etc.

Flat artists brushes about 1/2

inch in width. The quality issueis paradoxical here, because

while you want the brush to besupple enough not to leave

trench-deep brushstrokes in the

adhesive backing, you must also

steel yourself to the sad fact that

once you use one of these

brushes in this operation, you

can never quite get all of the

adhesive out of it, rendering itfairly useless for other painting

applications. Pliancy returns

whenever the brush is soaked in

alcohol and/or used for moregluing, but it will always dry to

resemble something like a scale scuba flipper or rubber spatula afterwards.

Microscale Metal Foil Adhesive. Follow the instructions on the back of the bottle TO THE

LETTER! That should be explanation enough. The glue seems to be acrylic-based, as its smell

and color is similar to white woodworking glue. It is water-thinnable, although I have tended not

to exploit this property, as I have encountered a lot of beading-up problems enough as is with thesurfaces Ive been working with, and I think that thinning the glue would only exacerbate this.

But then again, my experience is still pretty shallow with the material, and there is a lot more


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experimentation that needs to be done. It seems likely that brushstrokes which are often visible

under the foil after application to the model in the technique I am using now would be greatly

reduced with thinner glue. In any case, the matter bears looking into further.

Rubbing alcohol. This is used to clean (as best as possible, that is) brushes and to clean up dried

patches of glue from botched model surfaces before re-foiling.

Furniture finishers fine-grit steel wool. Use the densest, thinnest strand wool you can get. This is

used not only in repair and botched surface clean up operations, but also to apply the all-

important finishing touch patina of fine scratches over the foil surface to give your model a

realistic NMF sheen. After all, you want your plane to look like it is made out of aviation

Duralmin, not recycled funhouse mirror.

Cotton swabs and round toothpicks. These are used in applying and burnishing foil. The sharp tipof the toothpick is used to revive rivets and panel lines after the foil goes on and the wrinkles

have been rubbed out (often an inexact science but you have to learn to live with that).

A plentiful supply of NEW single-edged razor blades and/or modeling/design knife blades.

Working with foil requires blades as sharp as possible. Unfortunately, the foil also makes short

shrift of any blade that comes into contact with it, meaning that the half-life of your blade will be

measured in minutes. Literally. I went through about twenty razors and maybe half as many

design knife blades building the F-84.

And last but not least, the Three Ps of foiling: patience, perseverance and prayer. A little luck

doesnt hurt, either.

3. GETTING STARTEDAs Shep Paine once put it, a metallic scheme is the most unforgiving surface type you can

model. Every mote of dust, every finger swipe, every hesitant brushstroke in short, everymistake you make with it will stand out as clearly and gaudily on the finished product as cheap

lipstick on a filling station bathroom mirror. Although much more forgiving (if at least a bit more

readily repairable) than painted metallic schemes, foiling is still no exception to this rule, so

keeping the old adage about an ounce of prevention in mind and taking a few prudent

preparatory steps will save

much heartache later on. First of

all, it is crucial that your work

area be as dust-free as possible.A tall order, perhaps, for a

modeler, but a little preventive

vacuuming or at least a

peremptory sweep-up or dampcloth wiping of your table

certainly cant hurt.

Addressing the foil (Hello,

foilTo the moon, Norton, to

the moon!) is a matter of

careful and mutual respectbetween man and material. Cut

a workable amount of foil from


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the roll (i.e., just a little more than you need for the area you will cover), taking care not to foul

either your piece or the remainder on the roll with small wrinkles. Big wrinkles can be rubbed

out, but the small, tight ones can not. If a piece gets wrinkled like this, it is unusable.

Lay the foil dull side up (the matte finish provides bite for the glue, thus minimizing beading)

on a disposable, smooth, dust-free (sorry to be repetitive, but I cant emphasize this enough)surface. Ive found dry cleaners shirt-backing cardboard to work nicely. Dip your brush about a

quarter-inch into the glue, then, making sure to keep your brushstrokes parallel (theyll be

slightly visible after the foil goes on, so orient them to look like stress lines or grain in the

metal structure), start from one end of the foil piece and brush evenly and quickly over to the

other side, covering everything in one pass. If either puddles or dry patches appear at this stage,

you can (and should) give them a quick stab or two with the glue brush, but you should do thiscarefully, because as a rule of thumb, it is best not to go over the same spot twice. The reason for

this is that, much like uncured paint, the glue-wet brush will re-liquidize spots from the previouscoating, lifting them up and off the surface as the brush passes over. These will then dry into

little but very inconveniently three-dimensional rubber cement booger-like motes that are

impossible to remove. If this happens, you will have to trash the piece, cut out another and startall over again.

If all has gone well, you now wait until the whitish-milky glue has dried to a dull Scotch tape-

like sheen. I like to use my incandescent desk lamp as a dryer to speed this process up. If you

wish to do so, make sure youve dusted the lampshade recently. If not, youll get a nice little

sprinkling on your glued foil when you adjust the light over the work area.

Once the pressure sensitive glue has dried, the foil is ready to be applied. Choose a single point

near the center of the area to be foiled, and aim center-of-mass of your foil piece to touch there

and ONLY there. From this

single, central point, beginburnishing out towards the edges,

being careful not to make anymore wrinkles than you

absolutely have to. After you

have finished burnishing and find,

to your horror, that there are nasty

little air blister bubbles in the foil,

just lanceem! Make a feathery

light cut along the bubble from

end to end, with just enoughpressure to cut the foil but NOT

the plastic underneath. Burnish

over this with the edge of a

toothpick, pushing along the same

direction as the cut, and it will all

but disappear.

4. SEQUENCE OF FOILINGBefore beginning any foiling, you should study the layout and structural scheme of your model

to determine the order in which you will foil. In general terms, when working with aircraft, Ihave found it best to foil fuselage, wings, stabilizers and (if present) drop tanks separately before

assembly.


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Foiling each distinct airframe component like this keeps your foil pieces small and manageable,

reducing hassle in the event of disaster requiring re-foiling and also helping to prevent

wrinkles and spindles by avoiding abrupt angles (wing joints, etc.) in the surfaces to be foiled.

5. FOILING TAMIYA'S F-84The particular machine I chose

to model is 1LT Dolphin

Overtons fighter bomberstationed at Taegu, Republic of

Korea in 1951. LieutenantOverton was a 1949 graduate of

West Point who wascommissioned in the new Air

Force and later went on to ace

status in F-86 Sabres.Aeromaster produces fine

quality decals (AM 48-408 and

stencil set AM 148-025) for

modeling this aircraft.

As goes without saying for

anything recent from the House

of Tamiya, the model itself went together without a hitch. Fit was flawless everywhere. In

addition, the lack of irregularly curved surfaces makes this airframe a good starting project forthe beginning foiler, with the only notable exception being the wingtip and fuselage drop tanks,

which are shaped like something out of a calculus textbook and present a MAJOR foilingchallenge.

The best advice I can give for working with these is to keep your foil sections small, manageable

and parallel, because joints in the foil on these curved surfaces are rather conspicuous, so its

best to make them look like they are supposed to be there. Liberal uses of parallel steel wool

strokes will help a lot in masking the joints. If done well, this can render them almost (emphasis

on almost) invisible (PIC 3),

not only in the fuel tank

construction but in foiling any

area on the aircraft.

Eduard etched parts were used

in this model. One nice feature

of this set is that it provides youwith an early-type speed brake

panel, which you will need ifyou are modeling a Korean

Conflict-era aircraft. The swiss

cheese speed brake panel

provided by Tamiya is for mid-

50s, post-Korea Thunderjets(opposite chronology appears in

Squadron/Signals F-84


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Thunderjet In Action, proving that it sometimes pays to be wary of your sources!).

OD anti-glare, yellow trim,

cockpit green and yellow zinc

chromate are all done in Model

Master acrylics. Now that we areon the subject of paint, one

somewhat unfortunate

characteristic about foil is that it

takes to most paints like Teflon

takes to scrambled eggs. I found

this out, to my chagrin, when myentire OD anti-glare panel lifted

off in one clean, contiguouspiece along with the masking

tape I was peeling off. After a

few moments of dire panic,cooler sentiments prevailed and I

reached for my trusty bottle of

floor wax. Subsequent experimentation revealed that this was the only medium compatible with

the foil to any kind of dependable degree, but that at least TWO rather heavy-handedly applied

coats of this were needed before paint could go on and stick. For some reason, however, decals

went straight on the bare foil without any peeling or any other problems.

6. WHEN DISASTER STRIKESThe fundamental weakness

inherent in foiling is the simple,physical fact that you are trying to

cover three-dimensional, oftenirregularly curved surfaces with an

inherently inflexible two-

dimensional medium. The most

obvious and commonly occurring

consequence of this dynamic is,

yes, you guessed it, wrinkles. I

should re-emphasize this by

saying that, more than justcommonly occurring, wrinkles are

downright unavoidable in foiling.

Now, you can either let that fact

break your heart and give up thewhole project, or you can push on

and face up to those wrinkles (ha-ha) using any or any combination of the following options:

Ignore them. Go over them again and again with a cotton swab or other tool and try to burnish them away. Sand them into oblivion with a silicon disc, etc., then lay small foil panels over the areas

where the foil has been removed. Cut out the affected area, then foil over it.


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Before I forget, I should note here that there are two basic schools of thought regarding foil

jointing. One (and perhaps the dominant) school holds that the best results are to be had by

foiling along the panel lines, i.e., laying each panel with a separate piece of foil, then cutting

away the excess. The major plus for this process is that does it away with the need for

overlapping foil joints. The downside of this is that the foil edges are delicate, and when you go

back to blacken the panel lines later on, you will inevitable curl up some of these edges,sometimes requiring major repair. Also, this process involves freehand blade cutting directly on

top of the plastic. I dont care how good of a brain surgeon you may be, there is just no way that

you are going to leave those panel lines the way you found them after you have gone over them

with an X-acto knife. The damage may be minimal, but it is there, and if your personality is

anything like mine, it will bother you later on just knowing that it is there, and will catch your

eye every time.

The method I prefer is to live withjoints in peaceful co-existence

(thus nicely preserving the

integrity of my panel lines). Inother words, I try to cover as

much surface with one piece as I

can while keeping the size

manageable and deliberately

avoiding laying the edges along

panel lines. Despite its thinness,

foil is amazingly tough and

resilient under abrasives, and I use

this quality of the material to

maximum advantage in employing

abrasives and buffing agents tohide joints.

In any case, experiment with an old model to find a technique that works for you.

On a related and final note, dealing with sharp edges like trailing wing edges and control

surfaces presents another choice of technique. One technique, which is the easier but, as I have

discovered, far less satisfactory of the two is to simply foil out to the end of the edge and just

trim away the excess. This may look fine for a while, but after even the slightest handling, the

edges are in dire danger of curling up. If that starts to happen, all you can do is to keep mashing

them down or to keep cutting away, hoping that the process will eventually stop before youvedenuded the entire aircraft.

An overlapping technique is by far more effective in producing durable and convincing edges.

Foil the upper surfaces clean over the top and around to the bottom, where you can joint in a

fairly inconspicuous spot under the aircraft. A little touch up with your trusty sanding tools and

some elbow grease with the steel wool again and youre in business.

7.CONCLUSIONFoiling, obviously, is not for everyone. The average modeler, with an average patience limit,

would be better off sticking to the trusty airbrush and investing in a bottle of SnJ (which issupposed to be excellent, I understand). For this author and the slowly, slowly burgeoning ranks

of FFFs, however, nothing looks more like aluminum than aluminum, and even with its


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significant flaws, foiling can not be bested in simulating Duralmin NMFs in scale aircraft

modeling. Let the results speak for themselves:

8. SUMMARY OF MEDIA USED Tamiya 1/48 F-84G Thunderjet Aeromaster decal sets Thunderjets Over Korea, Pt.II AM 48-808 and F-84 Stencil Set

AM 148-025

Eduard photoetched parts set #48257for TAM F-84G Thunderjet Microscale Foil Adhesive Toyo Arumi aluminum foil9. REFERENCES F-84 Thunderjet in Action by Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal, 1983 Korean War Aces by Robert F. Dorr, Jon Lake and Warren Thompson, Osprey Aircraft of

the Aces No.4, Osprey, 1995 IPMS Norway hp @ http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/1375/f84g.htmlVisit Bucky's Website at

www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/6207

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