Posted by Steven on August 04, 19103 at 05:30:37:
In Reply to: Re: paint parting lines posted by Gord on July 23, 19103 at 09:34:36:
: I was hoping someone would reply to your question because I have the same problem. In fact, maybe worse, since I had a lot of paint bleeding under my tapeing. Not sure why, or how to correct in the future.
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: : I am painting my boat different colors.The paint at the parting line is thicker (or so it seems) than anywhere else. When I peel back the tape to apply the next color there is a ridge of paint. What do I do about that?
: : Six coats might be too much eh? SS
: : Red paint is a hard color to cover even with grey primer beneath.
It is difficult to reply to your post as niether one of you mentioned what type of paint you did the striping with. You'll benifit from useing a primer that is the same color as the striping, i.e.: red oxide for reds, dark for dark, light for light, etc. This is done for 2 reasons: 1. To assist the top coat with coverage/hiding. 2. so any light scratches through the top coat won't be blatantly obvious. This is standard proceedure on a quality custom job. Many automotive primers can be tinted, consult your auto paint supplier. As far as pait bleeding under the tape, it is wise, (but not critical), to use a special striping tape or PVC electrical tape, these are stronger than regular masking tape but in either case, go over the edges with a thumbnail or a clean pop-sickle stick to burnish down the edge. To level the paint edge! this is not an easy task! at least not a quick task anyhow. I dont recomend it for the inexperienced but here is how it is done: There are two common methods and a few more and again not knowing what type of paint used?; Determine what the tape free time and the polish time is for the paint used, these are the times after application in which to remove the tape and sanding/polishing is possible. For many 2 part ''urethanes'' polish time is usually 16 hours tape free is about 5 hours. After removeing the tape and at the proper cure time, wet sand the edge with a worn piece of 600 or 1500 paper. The idea is to taper just the edge to break the sharp edge. As you can see this is a job that requires some skill and judgement as you need to know when to quit sanding as to not break through the top coat as well as leave enough paint for the final buffing and polishing. Generaly speaking this method cannot be used with synthetic enamals that are not catalyzed as it takes them a good 3 months or more to reach a compleate cure via oxidizing. The idea of this method is to level the stripe with the base color so that the edge is negligable. Another method is to paint the stripe before the base coat then mask the stripe trimming the edge with a razor blade. Tedious to say the least! When I do custom paint on cars, the prefered method is to use clear coats, this ''melts'' the paint edge but if you look at most all custom graphics, they are never level with the base color. Anyhow good luck!