Paint seams when masking

[kingbob]

Hi guys

I'm painting a rather complex flame design at the moment, and have just done one of the complex layers over the basecoat. The base is a dark blue, and the second coat red, so i laid down a silver first, then the red.

I've now removed all the masking, but have found i've got a raised ridge/line where the paint was masked. If i sand it down, i'll get the silver showing through, and damage the base colour. Obviously i've painted too thick a coat, but how to fix it?

Short of stripping the whole **** thing, i dont know what to do about the raised line. Its got to be a common problem, but i dont know what to do about it.

Throw a clear gloss over the whole thing and hope it works to level it?

[dabears]

If you used a coat or two of clear could you then wet sand it smoother and then do final coats of clear?? I hate paint which is why i refuse to do it myself.. but sound like it might work???

[Espeefan]

I think you'll always get that 'ridge' between the paint line breaks, no matter what you do. How much paint you lay down will make it show up more, or less, but I wouldn't strip the whole paint job just because of that. It's probably only a couple thousands of an inch thick, but you'd be surprised how the human eye can pick up on it. I'm not the best painter in the world either, but I'd go along with what Aaron said. Finish your paint job first, clear coat it, wet sand it, then clear it again. Repeat it a few times until you notice the break between the paint colors is disappearing. Kind of like building up the lower lying paint, with clear coat, to remove ridge effect.

I'll tell you what. I would be happy, and completely fine, with a ridge between paint line breaks, as long as the lines are crisp and clean, with no bleed through.

[Koolaid89]

dabears is right you can clear it then wet sand it with like 600 or higher then reclear it. How thick is the paint? you can lightly color sand it then clear it but it sounds like your paint might be to thin to do that. I saw a vid on youtube one time of a guy building an italeri pete 378 he put his decals on then cleared it then sanded over the decal to feather the edges and recleared it. It looked great so that's what I started doing. When you sand it you will see the dark edge of clear showing up at your color breaks it you can continue to sand till feathered or clear again and sand until the dark edge quits showing up at breaks. Sounds hard but its really not just take your time and it will you will be fine. Just remember you can always sand it down and start over...LOL hope it helps...Koolaid

[scalepaintn]

hello. if your using spray paint out of a shake it up. you will probably never get it out.or smooth. and to much paint and clear you start to lose detail. auto. paints or even [spray paint] transferred in to a paint gun or airbrush will allow you to use a lot less paint. so less build up. and less of a high or low spot. then clear sand and repeat until satisfied. the short answer. lol