Paint Your Car With Rustoleum

Step 5: Mask!

You don't want to paint your window now do you? No...that wouldn't be very smart. But never fear, masking tape is here! You'll need painters tape (blue) or extra strong auto masking tape (green) to cover all the areas that are already the right color.

Some things to mask:

• Windshield
• Side windows
• Rear window
• Mirrors
• Rubber gaskets that you weren't able to remove in step 2
• Door handles
• The inside of the car (you'll have the doors open when you paint)
• Tail pipe
• Engine bay
• Radiator (believe me, it looks quite retarded if paint gets on there when you paint the front of the car)
• Tires
• Any important-looking labels inside the door that have important car information

Again, things like tail lights, head lights, rubber gaskets, car logos, etc should really be removed before you paint, or it will end up looking like a noob did it with finger paint.

For big areas use quality masking paper or cardboard, and garbage bags work well for tires.

The quality of the mask job is immeasurably important. If you do super crisp accurate masking, your paint job will look like the car was always that color. Spend as much time on this step as possible.

Comments

[wonkette]

 The more you remove in the form of ornaments, fixtures, lights, mirrors, etc., the less you need to mask.  Odd shapes are harder to mask than flat ones, so remove those things that stick out.

[mattm681]

hey i was planning on doing this to my 93 honda prelude soon - i was just wondering about how long did it take you to remove all of the tail lights, headlights gaskets ect and then how much time did it take to mask off the other areas? thanks

[DrSimons]

Removing all the parts that can be removed was pretty easy....took an hour maybe. All you need is standard tools (ratchet set, screwdrivers) and it's pretty easy to figure things out. Masking was pretty tedious, especially caus you can't do that until right before you paint. But still, only an hour or 2.

[mattm681]

awesome thanks for the reply.