I am building the Hase F-16A in the red, white and blue demonstrator scheme. Tamiys is the only company that has the correct colors available out of the jar, so I went and picked up the red black and blue colors from the Tamiya rack. I have little experiance in acrylics, being a Testors enamels kinda guy.
I masked out the red areas with Pactra fine line tape, over masking with standard 3M blue tape. Sprayed the red on with no difficulty, but when I unmasked 2 hours after painting, the edge was ragged.
So when I did the blue/black areas, I sprayed and waited only 20 minutes before unmasking, thinking that if the paint film was not too hard it would make a better edge. No such luck. The edge looks as if a ten year old masked it off with Scotch tape.
What am I doing wrong here??? Or is it just bad masking karma?
Make sure the tape is burnished onto the surface to prevent any runs under the tape.
When you spray, don’t spray INTO the mask. Keep your airbrush pointed away from the mask edge. That’ll prevent build up along the edge and any subsequent tearing of the paint. In addition, try not to spray heavy coats of paint. The lighter the better.
As a safety precaution after the paint has begun to set up, you might consider taking a new #11 blade and LIGHTLY running it down the mask edge just prior to removing your tape. This will sever any paint from the tape, and will also prevent tearing of the paint.
Hope this helps some, Eric.
Gip Winecoff
I agree with Styrene. I have removed the masking tape from minutes to hours after painting but the crucial thing is to make sure the direction of spray is away from the tape edge. Now this isn’t always possible which is where his point 3 is important.
The thing I would always emphasis and re-emphasis is to make sure the tape edges are well stuck down. I have found that has been the cause of maybe 90% of all my problems. I now use a blunt chisel edge sliced into a cocktall stick or just the round end itself and will go over every edge about 3 times to make sure its snug.
I have never found there is more of a problem with acrylics over enamals or one paint brand over another although.
I use Tamiya masking tape and let each coat thoroughly dry before I peel off the tape or put new tape down. If you can, practice on an old model or a piece of sheet styrene before painting a model. It’s a cliche, but practice makes perfect. Good luck!!! [:D]
Eric, as well as all the above points I have also found I get better results if I stick the tape (Tamiya is best for me) onto a piece of glass and using a small steel ruler and sharp No. 11 blade cut a nice clean edge. Then peel the the tape off the glass and use the newly cut edge to do your masking. I just feel this gives me a sharper line than the machine cut edge of the roll.
Erik.
If the jagged edge is from paint that crept under the tape, burnishing the edge down really tight is very important. Also brushing on a clear coat before the color will seal the edge of the tape so the color cannot creep under. If the jagged edge is from paint on top of the tape maybe it is put on too heavy. Thinning the paint and or lighter coats might help. Also lightly, with a sharp blade ,cutting along the edge of the tape might help.