Masking

If you have watched a professional painter work you may have seen them painting without masking and masking tape.  If you have a steady hand this approach is fine.  However, if you are not so sure about your hand and you are looking for a crisp clean line masking and masking tape are essential parts of the painting process.

It is important to know that masking tape and masking plastic come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and styles.  Getting the correct masking material for the job is the first step.  One thing to keep in mind is that the old beige colored rolls of “masking tape” are not the right tool for the job.  Today you will be buying “painting tape” which is typically blue or yellow and has been specially designed so the glue does not to ruin your walls and windows.  Painters tape is manufactured by several companies but 3M is the leading company in this product area.  Here are some good things to consider as you go to the paint store to buy masking.

<!    1)  How wide does your masking material need to be?  If you are spraying outside or painting a window sash inside you need different widths to protect your clean surface.  You can go crazy with a variety of widths but here are some ideas on what seems to work in almost all applications.  Use a 1.5” or 2” wide painters tape and masking film that is at least 12” wide.  In some cases these may be a bit wide but at least you will not be too narrow and end up with paint on your clean surface.

2)  How strong does your masking need to be?  The strength of the masking tape or film determines how much stickiness it has.  How hard it will stick to your surface.  This is important for two reasons.  First when you pull off  the masking you do not want it to destroy whatever it has been stuck to.  Second you want the masking material to adhere to the surface with enough umph so that the new paint does not leak underneath and give you an unclean line.  On exterior jobs go for a full strength tape in almost all applications.  On the interior jobs a medium strength tape is best.  A heavy tape is normally not needed inside and a light touch tape will only be needed for very delicate applications.

3)     Finally you want to consider how long you will leave your tape in place.  Will the job be done in one day or one week?  This is important because masking tapes are designed to be removed after a certain period of time before they leave a sticky residue behind.  Read the tape labels and choose a masking material that will remove cleanly after the proper number of days based on how long your project will take.  If the tape says it can remain in place for 2 weeks then you can leave it on for 2 weeks.  If it is only good for 2 days you need to make sure your project will be done in that period of time.

When painting on the exterior of your home masking is a task which normally requires a bit less precision than on an interior job.  You will want to protect your windows and doors, your roof and gutters (if they have a different color) and your trees and shrubs.  You also want to be careful where you may have brick and stone meeting up with a painted surface.  In these places you will want to mask the brick or stone to avoid difficult cleaning.  Typically on an exterior job you will be using a sprayer or larger rollers and brushes.  You will be looking for a masking film that is about 12” wide.  These masking films come in a roll with the tape on one side and then plastic attached to the tape.  The plastic gives you the extra width and protection you will need when waving your sprayer back and forth while standing on your ladder.

To protect landscaping use old sheets or drop cloths as they are easy to move as you are painting and will cost less than masking plastic.  If a tree or bush grows close to the structure you can get a rope and a stake to tie the tree and pull it away from the house.  This will make painting easier and protect the plant.

Another important part to exterior painting is not to paint when the wind is blowing especially if using a sprayer.  Paint in the wind and you will end up with a fine mist of paint all over everything from your patio and deck to your windows and driveway.

Interior painting requires a bit more attention to detail and there are many tricks used by different painters to get the job done.  First rule of thumb is paint from top to bottom.  Start with the ceiling, which is normally a lighter color than the walls, and don’t worry about masking the corners.  In fact you want to make sure you paint down an inch or so on to the walls to get a good looking finish later on.

Now it is time to mask in the walls.  Place your tape on the ceiling by pressing your medium strength  2” tape on to the ceiling as close to the corner as possible,  Press down firm on the edge of the tape to make sure you have all of your bumps and ridges neatly taped. You will now see that the ceiling color which you previously overlapped on to the wall sticks out from the tape.  This is good.  When you paint the wall and remove the tape later you will be left with a clean line even if the tape was not perfectly in the corner.  You can use the same trick on the trim and baseboards.  Just paint up the wall a little bit with the trim color and you will get a better line when you pull off the tape.

Here is another trick you can use that gets a similar result.  Paint the ceiling first as discussed.  Then mask all the ceilings and trim.  Before applying the wall colors take your ceiling or trim color and paint the seam between the masking tape and the wall which is to be painted.  Allow this strip of paint to dry.  What you have now done is made a leak proof barrier between the wall and your tape which will prevent the wall color from bleeding behind the tape and ruining your perfect line.  Once you have painted the walls and pull off the tape you will have a clean line where the two paint colors meet.

You can use these same techniques when painting two different colored walls that adjoin each other.  Paint around the corner with the first color, the lighter color preferably.  Tape in the corner pressing firmly down on the edge of the tape and then paint your second colored wall.  When you remove the tape you will have a nice clean line between the colors.  If you try to paint each color perfectly into the corner of the wall you will end up with a sloppy looking mess.  If you are painting over an old color your corner will have three colors. The two new colors and the old color will still be peeking thru in spots.  You don’t want that.

The final step to a good masking job is removing the masking tape without ruining the paint job.  First let the paint dry.  Once the paint has dried into a solid film it will tear or cut easily as you pull off the tape.  Grab the tape at one end and pull away from the wall at an angle somewhere around 90 degrees.  The tape will act like a knife making a clean cut in the film of paint and leaving you with a nice smooth line.  This works best when you have applied 2 coats of paint maximum.  If you start painting coat after coat using the same masking tape the odds of the tape coming off easily are greatly reduced.  If you need more than 2 coats you should think about removing and reapplying your masking tape.

One final thought on masking.  You can buy all kinds of special pieces of masking material cut in certain shapes and sizes.  Curves and corners tend to be the most popular.  The trick is that if your corners are not square or your curves are not perfect these special cuts will not be very useful.  More often than not the corners in your house are not square, unless you are working on a window, so these special masking cuts may not be the answer to a perfect paint job.

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