Painting hubcaps

[perry113]

I have been in desperate need to paint my center caps on the 230SL. I finally bit the bullet and painted them on Saturday. Instead of using a stencil I taped off the non painted chrome areas using flexible rubberized masking tape. The whole thing took 4 hours to do.
They came out fantastic.
My car now finally has colored caps to match its beautiful Light Ivory paint.

[menesesjesse]

Peter
Great job on the hubcaps.  They look great.
Jesse

[Ulf]

That just encouraged me to do the same thing, did you use a scalpel to cut the tape in place or was it flexible enough to follow the rounded contours?

Ulf

[al_lieffring]

instead od trying to follow the coutours of the star and ring with the tape, I just run straight pieces of masking tape over the entire area, trim it with an X-acto knife and peel away the area to be painted. This way takes less than an hour to do all 4 wheels.

[w113dude]

Good job Peter!

[perry113]

That just encouraged me to do the same thing, did you use a scalpel to cut the tape in place or was it flexible enough to follow the rounded contours?

Ulf

Hi,

It's special flexible tape and bends beautifully.

[ja17]

Hello,

I also use Al's flat tape process.

I usually lightly sandblast the untaped areas after masking and before priming so the primer gets good adhesion. I also use a "etch" primer.  The same tape job works on the sandblasti and the painting. Be gentle.

The secret to a good job is to use just enough paint and primer to do the job. A very light coat of primer and just enough paint to cover is best.  Heavy paint build up causes heavy, thick paint edges when the masking is removed.

[perry113]

I scuffed the areas to be painted with a red 3M scuff pad (320). You take off the tape within 45 minutes after painting. If you wait too long you can run into a problem of pulling off painted surfaces.

I think the flexible tape is called fine line. It's blue and comes in several widths.

Best of luck to all who are going to do the same.

Cheers

Peter

[Ulf]

I gave up on finding that special, flexible tape and used regular masking tape and a fine scalpel - that worked fine as well, at least I'm quite proud of the result as I'm not usually very good at doing stuff like that

[Iconic]

And now you, in turn, have given me motivation. Thank you.

[Ulf]

You're welcome - have fun!