Warbird Information Exchange

I have a question. Should I mask off the ice boots on the leading edges after I have painted the wings or should I paint the ice boots on first and then spray the wings with the boots masked off ?

I usually do the boots first because I get nervous masking over NMF finishes, afraid of either pulling them off or leaving adhesive on them. But if I built more models and was comfortable that I could safely mask the NMF, I'd probably paint the wings first.

August

Paint the wings fully first and then install the deice boots. Boots are not the same dimensions in my experience.

Depends on the metal finish used. If you are using Testors Metalizers then paint the boots first as tape can lift the metal finish. If using Alclad then paint the metal finish first and mask it off then paint the boots. Alclad stands up to paint really well.

I've not had any issues with masking silver (or metallic) paint since moving to acrylics.