Painting question

[Mud Chucker]

Hi all,
For those of you that paint... How do you keep from getting or get rid of ridges when you mask something off in order to paint a design over a base color.? Probably a basic thing, but I don't know much about spraying paint. I'd like to keep a nice level paint job.

Thanks
Bjorn

 

[jimmyinpitts]

Mud, when you tape and mask off your base color and spray another coat over it, there is going to be a hard paint line at your tape when you remove it. If you clear coat over your entire area, this line will flow somewhat, but if you want to get rid of it entirely (Like a show car), you will have to hand sand with fine grit sandpaper, 600 or so, after a day's time and re-clear the area. Good Luck!

 

[Buster]

Yes, if you want the line to be gone you must sand the edge then clear coat I usually do this then sand the clear to make sure you can feel no ridge try using a DuPonte 222 or a House of Kolors intermediate clear. These are not the final clear but allow you to re-tape areas with out the paint lifting and you can sand them just fine for no ridge. Use 600 as the lowest and work your way to 1500 if the ridge is very high.In some cases yu can use 1000 to start and kill the ridge if you use the the gun lightly or with thinner paint applications.

 

[Mud Chucker]

Thanks guys. About what I expected answers to be.

Bjorn

 

[scooter]

mud something else that will help is to use 3m fineline tap its a blue plastic tape that leaves a finer edge than regular masking tape and is a little easier to sand out youre tape line i agree with buster on mid-coat clear it dries like basecoat so you can sand it faster than top-coat clear