How To: Tape a Clean Line for Painting
Description
When taping the walls for painting, I use a little trick I learned.
In the past, I had made mistakes with taping, such as leaving the tape on too long, which can tend to rip up your nice freshly painted latex.
Even if you pull the tape off in time, you can sometimes pull up the paint on the surface you are trying to protect.
To prevent both problems, I use the following technique.
- Always let the surface you are going to tape dry for a day or two. I'm talking about the surface you are protecting, not the one you are painting.
- When you are ready to tape, tear off 2-3 feet of tape at a time.
- Apply the tape to a carpeted or cloth surface, like your painting jeans. This removes some of the glue from the tape, and makes it less likely to pull away the paint on the wall.
- Apply the tape to the wall, but don't smooth the whole surface down. Carefully press the tape onto the wall along the edge you are going to paint, but leave the far edge of the tape loose. Be very thorough about pressing in the edge you will paint, so the paint won't leak through.
- Work your way across the wall (or whatever) a few feet at a time, carefully keeping the taped edge straight.
- After you paint, wait 20 minutes to an hour before peeling away the tape. NEVER leave the tape overnight, you will wind up very unhappy when the new paint pulls away with the tape. This assumes you are painting with latax.
- If you have to paint another coat, repeat the process.
I've been told that you can paint a couple of coats before pulling off the tape, but I haven't tried that. It is a bit tricky to time it so that the first coat is dry enough to paint on, but not so dry that it won't have attached itself to the tape.