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Ridges of paint along masks

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  • Member since
    December 2002
Ridges of paint along masks
Posted by 7474 on Thursday, October 23, 2014 9:44 PM

I have a 1/48 Falcon 10 kit that I'm working on, have to strip the paint and restart. I was doing black towards the front, red on the rear and a white band in between. I painted the white first, then the red, but when I pulled the masking tape up, there was a ridge that I tried to sand away. The red then dirtied up the white paint. I was using rattle cans. Any way to paint and not get a ridge?

  • Member since
    December 2006
  • From: Phoenix, AZ
Posted by Fly-n-hi on Friday, October 24, 2014 12:07 AM

Was the red gloss?  You can use flat red and then spray a gloss coat over that.  Gloss paints have to be sprayed on a bit thicker which contributes to the ridges.  But with rattle cans it may be hard to eliminate the ridges no matter what.

  • Member since
    October 2007
  • From: Scotland
Posted by Milairjunkie on Friday, October 24, 2014 8:12 AM

Spraying towards the masking will cause a build up of paint - spraying at 90° or more to the masking edge will prevent paint accumulating against the edge.

  • Member since
    December 2002
Posted by 7474 on Saturday, October 25, 2014 11:13 AM

Yeah the red is gloss. I'll try with painting with a flat at a 90 and slowly build up the paint. Thanks guys.

  • Member since
    August 2013
  • From: Michigan
Posted by Straycat1911 on Saturday, December 27, 2014 7:18 AM

I read in FSM a general tip that to avoid ridges, remove the masking ASAP after spraying; don't give the paint time to set and build a ridge. "Shrug". Not sure if it works or not.

  • Member since
    July 2008
  • From: Summerville, SC
Posted by jeffpez on Saturday, December 27, 2014 8:01 AM

I've found that using an air brush rather than spray cans helps the problem because the cans blast far too much paint.

  • Member since
    November 2009
  • From: Twin Cities of Minnesota
Posted by Don Stauffer on Saturday, December 27, 2014 9:09 AM

If the finish will be matt, one can sand those ridges with very fine paper- 1500 or finer, and the paint will not show the sanding.

Don Stauffer in Minnesota

  • Member since
    September 2014
Posted by Cloud Hopper on Saturday, December 27, 2014 9:43 PM

I would suggest if you don't already have one, invest in a good airbrush.  My first AB was a Badger 200 which I still have and is my go-to brush for a lot of my painting jobs.  Airbrushes have way more control than the rattle-cans.

  • Member since
    June 2014
Posted by USAFASME7 on Monday, March 2, 2015 2:55 PM

De-masking while the paint is still relatively wet DOES work! It's how I was taught to paint real aircraft 26 years ago. The demarcation line lays down with no ridge.

--Rob

Glue Sniffer since 1977

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