questions about taping

[richN]

I am interested in the concept of taping off your car before polishing and waxing. What exactly do you tape? Let me rephrase that question.When taping do you let the tape overlap onto the paint?Take for instance the A pillar of any given car,you will have the rubber gasket from the window. Do I just tape the rubber or do I overlap the tape alittle onto the paint to sort of cover the transition between rubber and paint.
Another area for example. Picture a door handle of a jeep cherokee,would I tape the handle or the handle and overlap onto the paint to cover the handle to body joint.I hope this is understandable. It is kind of a hard question to ask.Thanks Rich

[BlueZero]

Re: questions about taping

Rich, check out this link. It gives some great info on taping.

How to use the G-100 to remove swirls

[Mike Phillips]

Re: questions about taping

Hi Rich,

Everyone does this a little different so you may get different advice from different people, I'll tell you how we do it.

We overlap the tape onto the paint about an 1/8 to a 1/4 inch past the trim your taping off. This prevents your products from getting onto the trim and into the cracks, crevices and seams between the trim and the paint.

The question everyone asks after this is,

"What about the paint that has tape on it? Does this mean this paint doesn't get polished?


Yes. That's what it means.


But we're talking about just a little area of paint surrounding any trim, not the middle of the hood. It's just too hard to remove dried chemicals like compounds and polishes and waxes off of rubber and even worse, pebble textured plastic trim to make it worth getting it on these surface in the first place.

The BIG PICTURE is this, after you machine clean, polish and wax your car it's going to look GREAT!

And no one is going to come around and say,

"Well Rich, the paint on your car looks great, that is everything but this little tiny area next your your trim"


If they do, ask them how they would go about effectively and in a timely manner, remove the swirls, polish and wax these small, thin sections of paint and if they can show you how, then take their advice and follow their example.

If you want to... you can carefully just tape the trim and tuck, wrap, poke-it into and up against the trim itself and then try not to get any product splatter into the cracks, crevices and seams between the trim and the paint, but the work and time required to do this usually won't outweigh just overlapping a tiny little bit onto the paint.

We've done it both ways and yes it can be done, but for the most part, even show car detailing is still about the big picture and not the tiny small areas around trim that's hard to remove splatter off of and out from under if you make a mistake.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: questions about taping

Chekc this out...

How to tape-off a car

[BlueZero]

Re: questions about taping

Chekc this out...

How to tape-off a car

Good, I am not crazy. At least not yet anyway. I knew there was a post on that but I couldnt find it. lol

[richN]

Re: questions about taping

Thanks for the replies.That should keep me busy for alittle while ,Rich