Hi everyone, well after finishing the rocker cover I spent today stripping the chrome mouldings, door handle, door card of the car this needs to come of to remove the door mirror had to stop at 3 oclock as I had an appointment to get my Mohican refreshed (bleached blonde) so got back at 5.30, had my tea then at 7.00 entered my man cave, my mission for tonight was to get all the hub caps stripped of paint ready for me to try a new method of masking them up to get a crisper edge on the paint, I have already shown my normal method but the paint does creep under the normal masking tape which means that you have to re-mask when primer has gone on, then again after paint ready for laquer.
So ordered some Frisket Film, this is what is used by air brush artists, it is a low tack clear film that can be stuck in place and cut using a craft knife, so I was quit excited to try this method, so the paint was stripped using Nitromore, once the paint was off, it was time to inspect the hub caps for any dents or damage, the outside was perfect but inside where the retainer lugs on the wheels had rubbed through the plating and rust was forming, so first job is to sort the inside to slow the rust down as It wont be long before it spreads to the outside.
I used a resin rust removal wheel on a drill to get rid of the rust, once done I masked the inner ring that was in perfect condition and didnt want to paint the whole of the inside, etch primer was then sprayed and left to dry, once dry gave it a light flat with a fine scotch bright pad and some chrome paint was put over the top and left for 20 minutes, i then removed the masking and lacquered the whole of the inner metal, this hopefully will keep the rust at bay for a while longer.
Now the moment I have been waiting for, get the film out, measure a size big enough to cover the hub cap, peel off the backing and started from the center star and working outwards stick the film down by rubbing with a vinyl applicator, well within about 2 minutes it was obvious that the film was not going to work as its not flexible enough to work and was crinkling up, (anti climax) so it was peeled of and threw into the bin, I now needed another plan.
Casting my mind back to the 190 SL rebuild, I had tried using plastic lining tape but it reacted with the paint and appeared to be no good for this job but thinking back I had been over keen with the paint and lacquer, so decided to give it another go, so out with the tape and started masking, now this was quit fiddly to get it in the right place but this was probably down to the shine of the hub cap hiding the the lines to be masked, but after about 20 minutes it was ready for etch primer which I made sure that I didnt put it on to wet, I put 3 coats on and leaving it 10 minutes between coats, this was then left to dry.
Once dry I gave it a nib with a scotchbrite pad to remove a few spots of s..t and applied the first coat of paint (not to heavy) and using a heat gun to keep things warm added 3 more coats, checking the lining tape after each coat and it was looking ok.
I kept the heat gun on low heat for twenty minutes then laid on the first coat of lacquer, 2 lite coats and the tape is still ok so decided to put one last wet coat on and keeping my fingers crossed and the heat gun keeping the hub cap warm, now I would need to remove the masking before the paint starts to go hard so after 30 minutes and using the blade of a craft knife I lifted the lining tape enough to be able to hold it with my fingers gently pulled the tape away from the painted surface and hey presto a perfect edge to the paint.
so it was obviously my fault that it didnt work in the past but will be using this method in the future.
Anyway its now 4.50 am so here are some pictures.
Thanks for looking and will let you know how the other 3 hub caps come out.