Best masking tape?

[kevnbety]

Hey guys. I have a question for all the custom painters out there. What brand and/or type of masking tape do you use/recommend? I have tried the blue painters tape, which is good because it's not so "sticky" that it lifts paint under it, but it doesn’t seal very well either. So the paint separation lines look pretty bad. On the other hand, I have also used the ordinary white masking tape that is usually used by automotive painters. This creates a nice paint line, but often lifts the paint underneath it, and doesn't make curved lines very well.

So is there a "special" masking tape out there that is geared more toward us modelers? Thanks.

 

[macjet]

http://www.automotivetouchup.com/store/accessories/tape.aspx

 

[macjet]

Use a pencil eraser to push down the tape into the model.

 

[kenw]

spray a light coat of the "under the tape color" paint at a low angle towards both edges after you place the tape. It will seal the edges.

 

[Rotorranch]

I like 3M Fine line, and 3M automotive masking tape. Both available from a good automotive paint supply company.

All tape needs the edges burnished for a good seal. I also like the first coat to be just ever so lightly misted to help seal the tape.

kenw... I like the idea of a light coat of the "under the tape" color to seal the tape. That's a good idea!

Rotor

 

[UP2CSX]

Yep, nothing beats good quality 3M tape but good burnishing is also needed, as Rotor points out. There's a real method to all this and it takes some practice to get it right...most of the time.

 

[Smoke]

I use Tamiya tape. It is yellow and I use it in the 6mm size. The stuff is amazing, and it is the only tape I use. Even Brian Banna recommends the stuff. http://6axlepwr.com/BNSF_GP40M_3018_09.html 3/4 of the way down.

 

[Cjcrescent]

I used to use drafting tape. The tape was sticky but had to be removable from holding drawings on drafting tables.

One of the painting gurus when I lived in Mobile, told me about it. Tried it, and it was marvelous. It sealed well and was easily removed without pulling the paint off from underneath.

Nowadays I just use 3-M's masking tape. Since the advent of CAD, drafting tape is going the way of the dinosaur and has gotten very hard to locate.

 

[kenw]

Nowadays I just use 3-M's masking tape. Since the advent of CAD, drafting tape is going the way of the dinosaur and has gotten very hard to locate.

if you take regular masking tape and apply it to a glass surface, and peel it back off quickly and repeat a couple of times, the adhesion starts to approach drafting tape.

For fine stripes I used to use ChartPack charting tape. It is precisely cut in widths down to (iirc) 1/32". But with the advent of PowerPoint and such, graphing tape is darn hard to find. If you can live with a limited selection of widths, pinstripe tape from the autoparts store works well.

but trimming your own always works. I just get lazy sometimes.....

 

[Cjcrescent]

if you take regular masking tape and apply it to a glass surface, and peel it back off quickly and repeat a couple of times, the adhesion starts to approach drafting tape.

That is how I mask off my boilers when painting them. I take a couple of pieces of tape and lay them parallel to each other, then using a #11 scapel, which is sharper than a Xacto, and a metal straight edge, I quick slice out several dozen pieces about 1/8" wide and smaller.

These go onto the break lines of the smoke and fireboxes and the rest of the boiler. When I have a sufficient border built up, I finish the masking with "unsliced" masking tape and usually a paper wrap on the model to mask the area not to be painted with the color for the smokebox/firebox.

I did it this way even when I could get drafting tape.