Hi guys:

I am painting the silver trim stripe on my red/orange Speedster. I like to use the 3M - 471 flexible trim tape for this sort of work. It follows contours easily. The orange is the base color and the silver is the accent color on top. It looks better than it sounds. When I airbrushed the silver, I removed the masking tape as soon as the silver had set enough to allow it. I find less difficulty with paint pulling off with this rapid removal. when one pulls the tape off, it leaves a small (very small) ridge of the accent paint where it contacted the trim tape. One can let the paint dry completely and try to sand this ridge with a very fine sand paper. However, in this case the silver was extremely bright and the orange was not so bright and I was afraid that they might react differently to sanding. So, while the paint was still flexible, I pushed this ridge down by hand. First I tried using the back of my fingernail, but as I feared, the bright silver could be marked easily. Then, quite by accident, I found that the plastic band aid that I had on my thumb was excellent for this task. It pushed the ridge down readily by rubbing the band aid over the ridge and the soft pad prevented any marking on the face of the silver. Sometimes the best tools are free.

Jim Fruit

Hey Ash, whatcha building in the luthier shop right now?
I lose enough guitar picks as it is without that application.  When I get advertisements in the mail with cards in them that are like credit cards, I save those and keep half a dozen on hand for that sort of thing.  They can be used whole or cut down, whichever works for you.  The corners even fit in the fillet areas for the job.