Originally Posted by
Doug Fattic
You might want to consider painting the blue 1st sine the fine line blue stripe will be easier to mask with a single piece of tape. I use fine line tape from 3M because it has clean edges unlike regular masking tape. Good luck with masking the color transitions at an angle. I've done it because the customer requested it but the masking tape doesn't want to lay flat and it takes some coaxing for it stay put and not have the next color leak underneath.
Another advantage of doing an intermediate clear is because after wet sanding, it is a great base for the final clear to go on super smooth.
Ya..I've been flipping back and forth between white first and blue first..lack of experience. Blue first probably would be easier.
As for the angles..I'm using 1/4 inch 3M fine line auto-painters (vinyl) tape for all the painted edges. I've been practicing a bit with cheap 6mm blue masking tape. If you stick two pieces of (6 inch) tape together at 90 degrees and place the point of that 90 on the center of the (top) tube, both pieces of tape wrap around the bar and cross (ideally with even wrapping) at the centerpoint of the bar on the opposite side. The tape ends are then trimmed with an exacto knife to yield a good point. Even cheap masking tape seems to lay flat. I'm practicing to get better at this. I'm hoping/thinking the vinyl painters tape will lay flatter still(using fingernail to press the edges) and provide a good paint line. I've watched videos of guys masking fine-line flames on motorcycle gas tanks. The (1/8th inch in their case) tape seems to lay very well with tight radius loops. As the tape-crossing angle gets greater than 90 degrees the taped angle on the bar gets shorter(easier to accomplish?) up to the limit of 180 degrees tape-crossing where it's effectively the same as wrapping a single piece of tape around the tube at 90 degrees to the run of the tube.
That's the plan at least (could be a student's folly). If I mess up the paint lines on the angles then the fall back is to just wrap tape around the tubes at 90 degrees and have a hard transition from blue to white..repaint as needed.