Painting and More Masking

This evening I sprayed the masked out trim areas with the black metallic paint. I ran into a couple of issues, which will be good to remember for the next time.

First, it's highly advisable to go back over all of your masks if the body shell has sat idle for a period of time since you finished the masking. I found that somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd coats, some of the masking strips had lifted off the body, allowing paint underneath.

Second, the downside of mixing different types of masking tape materials became evident when I started to remove the masking. Where I had the blue tape on top of the white strips, the paint would actually lift off of the white strips when removing the blue tape. Fortunately I noticed it before it attempted to lift the paint off the lexan surface as well. By removing the white strips along with the blue tape, I was able to get all the masking off with minimal damage to the clean edges.

Third, the cuticle stick has found yet another use. After removing the masking tape, I was able to use the cutice stick to remove the paint that had managed to get underneath. Because it's wood (birch, I think) and somewhat soft (compared to an x-acto or other metal tools), I was able to use the edge of the flattened end to scrape off the unwanted paint. Upon further inspection, I found that there was little to no evidence that there had been any errant paint present.

All things considered, the results were pretty good. I left the window masks in place, since I still have yet to paint the body itself.

Speaking of painting the body, my wife helped me decide what the paint scheme will be. I've got it all masked except for the head lights and tail lights, but the more and more I think about it, the less and less I'm inclined to prep this body for LEDs, because I'm not really sure how I'd go about making light buckets for it. I may still mask it out but apply the stickers on top. Then if I get the LED kit, I'll just put the LED behind the sticker to simulate bulbs covered by the lenses. It won't cast any real light, but it will give the same effect. The other option is to punch a hole thru the body and mount it that way, but I think it'll look kind of funny.

I didn't include any pictures of the mask because I don't want to post any more pics of the body until the rest of it is sprayed, which I hope to do tomorrow.