F/FSport F
by david mitchell You can reach David Mitchellat 230 Walnut St. NW, Washington, District of Columbia 20012, or via e-mail at
davedge@me.com
reeflight modelers, especially those in the FAC, can be a resolutely ar- chaic lot, proudly sporting their “Luddite” T-shirts.
Yet...some new- fangled things do successfully elbow their way into the beloved, dog-eared and pol- ished processes of our timeless hobby. The adoption of computer technology has given us laser-cut parts and an amazingly vibrant cottage industry of kits and acces- sories, as well as a convenient means by which to tackle difficult color schemes via ink-jet and laser-jet printing on tissue. Per- haps the easiest way to ease into computer graphics is through your word processing program, which provides you with a wide range of scalable type fonts. You can print these out on paper at the required size to use as a pattern for masking, or as a template for cutting out tissue markings, or you can print custom designs directly onto tissue or decal paper.
Once you have the basic technique down, a little experimentation can produce out- standing results; unfortunately, different programs may require different approaches to getting those results. I’ll try here to give an outline of how one might go about creat- ing registration marks on an Apple comput- er, using their word processing program, Pages.
Warning: those of you uninterested in ap- plying computers to your modeling are going to be bored silly with this column, and might as well stop reading right now! Please do not cancel your subscription to FM. I promise to get back to more traditional methods next month.
Those of you who are interested but are not familiar with getting around in a pro- gram, follow closely with your computer at
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID MITCHELL
A font called “Amarillo USAF” was used in printing out templates for the red registration marking on the author’s Waco QDC. Registration was cut from red tissue, then glued to a chalked yellow tissue backer using spray adhesive. The yellow tissue was then trimmed to leave an outline, and each letter was glued individually to the silver wing.
the ready. Note that there is often more than one way to skin the cat in any given program. The methods I’m suggesting here are designed to establish basic familiarity with the tools and methods, and to explore the flexibility of what you can do with your fonts.
You can do pretty much anything you want in the Apple word processing program, Pages, so open it up and let’s get started. The first thing we want to do is choose a
font. At the top right of the screen, look for a large letter A with the word “fonts” under it. Click on this, and the Fonts dialog box opens. At the bottom left of this box, you’ll see a little graphic that looks like a gear with a small arrow pointing down. Click on this, and then click on “manage fonts” at the bottom of the drop-down box—you have just opened the Font Book.
The Font Book has three columns. In the left column (collection), click on “all fonts” to highlight it. The middle column (font) will show a list of all the fonts you have loaded on your computer; the right column will show the full alphabet and numbers 0–9 in the font currently highlighted. You’ll find there are some fonts that are more useful than others, and you should know that there are other fonts available for download on the internet, but for now let’s assume this is what you have to work with.
The font “PT Sans” was used on this Magister. The rudder markings are printed directly on the tissue used to cover the rudder; the fuselage markings are printed on yellow tissue, then cut out and applied individually.
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So, you find the font that works for your project; what next? Write down the name so you don’t forget it, and close the Font Book window. In the Fonts dialog box, find the font you selected in the “family” column, and click on it. This will set that font as the de- fault type for your new document. Type in your desired registration numbers—let’s say NC4321, in capital letters—it should type out in the font you selected. Now we’re going to look at the various for- matting tools arrayed across the top of the Pages application. You’ll see a ruler across the top of the page; just above that you will see a number of small dialog boxes. Don’t see anything? At the very very top of your screen, click on View and click on “show for- mat bar”. There, that’s better.
We’ll explore these tools going from left to AUGUST 2013
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