I'm sure where this belongs but if it needs to be move, move it please.
As I was out in the garage today masking off and getting ready to paint an engine block, I used this little trick I saw on youtube. Majority of the time when one uses masking tape to tape off parts, a razor blade is used to trim the edges and give it that factory look. It works great but I'm fresh outta razor blades so I tried something else.
I saw on youtube, a guys masking off an engine block and he used a hammer (small ball peen or a rubber mallet/bronze/plastic face hammer will do the same) and he tapped along the edges where the tape needed to be remove or where the razor blade would cut the tape. When he did this on the engine block, the tape was torn/cut and the excess was easily removed. The edge that was left behind looked the same as a razor and it took him far LESS time with the hammer than it would have with the razor blade.
So I tried it. And here are some pics to show you what I mean.
Masking tape and the excess. You can see the crease along the edge that I was making with my hand.
Here I am tapping the hammer along the block edge where it needed to be cut. The hammer is a plastic facing, sand filled, dead blow hammer.
As you can see, all I did was tap alogn the edge until the tape tore (which didn't take much, very easy) and then I just pulled the tape away leaving behind nothing as in the below picture.
PERFECT EDGE!!!!! And it went vdery quick. I did the entire block in about 8 minutes.
I think that this idea would work on ALL metal parts. It may even work on some hard plastic items too but I haven't tried that. I KNOW it works on metal parts.
Anyway, this was just an FYI to you guys. Just sharing a little trick that I found to be very useful.
Thanks.
Toby
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