Hi everyone,

I have a 90 Firebird and I decided to re-paint the rockers and the bottom of my doors (about 3 inches at the bottom of the door, up to the door seam”. My rockers were rough and my doors had a lot of stone chips and some rust starting. My problem is, how will I remove the tape line from the paint once I’m done painting? I want it to look nice.

 

If you painted to the tape edge, you won't "get rid" of the line. You can minimize it by wetsanding and buffing down the edge, but that will burn off both the existing paint and the fresh paint on that edge. Depending on your method for getting the finish up to that line, your prep method, and the amount of material you used...you may be able to get it passable. I wouldn't recommend it, if you haven't buffed before.

 

You really aren't saving much time or money trying to do it that way. Just fix your chips, blend your basecoat up the door and Clear coat the entire door. Way better job for may $50 more in material.

 

Agreed. Unless it is a 2-tone, or there is a molding or stripe to tape up to, a tape line will look terrible. There are ways to blend new clear coat into old, but that’s really just used for something like a 1/4 panel when you don’t want to paint the roof and the other quarter. For a door or fender, just feather the basecoat and clear the whole panel.

 

I'm hoping by the future tense of this sentence that you have not yet sprayed the car. If not, the method I've seen used involves folding the tape over prior to application. It's demonstrated in the attached video.

 

This is a good technique. You can also use 3M Soft Edge Foam Masking Tape. It is great for door jams and under the hood and trunk.

 

I have not seen that before. Thanks for sharing that.

 

I've seen people back tape to get a softer paint line, then buff it out and have it kinda blend...


Im not sure if you could get results on such old paint though....

 

If it's off the lower characteristic line on the bottom of the door, backtaping is a pretty viable repair. You can still get too big of an edge, because it's such a narrow area. (It would take a lot of work and good gun control). But with the chip repair, priming, paint and clear...I doubt it would look seamless.

Foam jamb tape isn't really used for an edge like that. (at least not while I was in the shop...and I just got out of the business last year.) I never really liked it in jambs...it just left too fuzzy of an edge, and the sealer always went farther than your basecoat, so you were still having to touch up the jamb.

Age of the finish really doesn't come in to play...condition of aged paint might, but not the age of the finish itself.

Probably better off just saving up for a proper paint job.

 

I’ve done the back tape method for “good enough” repairs on older daily drivers. Its better than a hard tape line, but it is definitely noticeable. If it was something with otherwise nice paint and wanted the repair to disappear, I would paint the whole panel.

 

you could two tone it like this lol

then you can leave the hard line