Afternoon all,

I've been experimenting with my new spray gun, and I have a question for anyone who knows a bit about spraying. I have been playing around with masking off areas, to paint a design, not too dissimilar to hot rod style flames. However, when i remove the masking, I am left with edges that are raised up quite noticeably. The paint has adhered to the basecoat rather well, but where the masking was, there is a distinct ridge.

I have tried sanding the ridge back a bit, with fine sandpaper, but that tends to expose the undercoat for the detailed area (eg, I am using a black bascoat, then msaking, before applying a white undercoat, and a yellow top coat, then removing the masking. Sanding back the ridges reveals the white undercoat).

I have also tried being a bit more careful when spraying round the masked edges, but the colur tends to get a bit wishy washy then, and is not a nice and even colour.

When i come to apply a clear topcoat, I have to apply several ratehr heavy coats, and flat it back to get a nice smooth finish.

Are there any tricks of the trade to help avoid this sort of scenario, or is it something that happens regardless of the masking and spraying technique used?

Andy

you need to put a few coats of clear on then flat back to get it to look flat, you dont flat the basecoat and you need to use proper edgeing tape as masking tape gives a crap edge to start with.
adam

[Edited on 16/2/10 by oadamo]

'Ordinary' masking tape is too thick to get nice clean sharp egdes. Use a specialist tape such as 3M fine line masking tape.

quote:

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Originally posted by minitici
'Ordinary' masking tape is too thick to get nice clean sharp egdes. Use a specialist tape such as 3M fine line masking tape.

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good to see i'm not the only one thinking of painting flames

mine will be orange with green tips i think

Better still use an airbrush

hi, use fine line tape and run your nail along the edge to make sure its fully stuck down.
only spray as much paint to colour up the area no more.
use base coat not top coat as its thinner.
after drying you can flat flat colours very carefully with very fine wetndry 1600 if you go through youll have to remask and blow in.
you cant flat metallic or pearl or metalflake base coats
any marks in the base will get magnified by the laquer

hope this helps
Ray

I'd go with airbrush too.
Cheers,
Bob

airbrush, dont flatten the colour only the top, use proper masking and show us the finished pics