This is something quite new to the market and may well be a 'wave of the future' for those who are tired of some of the problems one runs across when using decals. Nothing looks more like paint than paint and since most markings on aircraft of WWII were painted in place, then developing masks to duplicate these markings seems the next logical step.

Montex of Poland has developed a series of masks to do just that. This particular set is for two US Bubbltop P-47s. One is in OD over Neutral Grey and is from the 525 FS/86 FG operating in Italy.

The other is an unpainted metal aircraft of the 41 FS/35 FG, based on Okinawa during the last months of the Pacific war.

On both of these schemes, the large areas, such as cowlings and fuselage/wing ID stripes are not provided masks, however, the unit markings, insignia and serials are. Though there are no definite instructions on how to do these things, I assume that one paints the area to be masked with a color, then applies the mask, removing those parts that you want to keep a specific shade and then painting over them.

The set provides enough insignia and canopy masks for one 1/48 aircraft. I've shown both the diagram and the actual sheets as you can see, the actual sheets are difficult to see so I'll be using just the guide sheet in later reviews.

My thanks to Design and Marketing International for the review set. Visit them to order this and other fine Montex sets.

August 2005

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