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Hey, it’s Tony from LearnAutoBodyAndPaint with another video for the Q&A series. Here’s a question from Jerry.
“For acrylic enamel paint, what is your recommendation on the wait time to remove the masking tape from your project? Is it within a few hours or should I wait a day or two?”
A lot of people make the mistake of leaving the masking tape on too long on the project which results in the peeling of paint, especially around trim and mold if you’re masking them up.
If you go to the LearnAutoBodyAndPaint website and search for MASKING, I have a lot of posts that I made over the years on masking.
With any paint job, if you’re doing acrylic enamel or synthetic enamel, which are single stage paints, or even base coat clear coat, the best time to take off the masking on your car is two hours after your paint job.
When your paint job is tack-free, that is when you can start peeling off your masking tape. If you’re really masked up close to the edge of a trim or molding, you’ll see the paint will form and it will just come off and you’ll have a nice clean edge of your paint. You’ll see it is still flexible and will bend a little bit. If you wait until it completely dries, after a day or two, you’ll risk peeling into your paint job.
Two hours is a great time frame, it’s not too wet but has not yet completely dried or not 100% hard. And, as long as it’s tack-free or dust free.
If you touch the masking tape and it starts to string up, that means it’s too wet. It’s at a stringy stage.
You want your paint at a stage where when you touch, it’s not even giving you that tack sound. It’s pretty much dry.
It may also be good within an hour and a half for some paints. Depending on your reducer and what reducer you used. If it’s medium or fast and at a slow temperature.
Even with slow temperatures, you should be able to take off your masking tape after 2 hours.
It’s Tony from LearnAutoBodyAndPaint. Hopefully this video helps. Please don’t forget to Like, Share and Subscribe to my channel. Also, comment below and let me know what you think.
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Talk soon! Cheers!
Tony
Other Helpful Links:
Automotive Masking Tips – How To Tape a Car – How To Mask a Car
Masking & Spraying BASECOAT on Custom Tri-Tone Paint Job
GLOSS: Final Clearcoat Application & Unmasking The FRESH Paint Job!!
Step-by-Step Painting a Car In Your Garage – Unmasking Freshly Painted BMW!
CUSTOM PAINT 🚘 Two Tone Paint Edge Ideas To Get a Smoother Finish!
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