Masking Tape

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How many use masking tape when you polish?



I've seen alot of C&B's with people taping up every seam on the car, but doesn't that also cover a small amount of paint?



Do you spot-polish after you remove the tape? Or is it just such a small area that no one will ever notice that it wasn't polished?
 
I rarely tape any more. Products have come such a far was you don't need to worry about staining as much. Sometimes I'll tape when using a high speed in areas I think I might possibly burn the trim.
 
Yea I think I taped pretty frequently my first couple of years. it's a great training tool to better understand how your machine will work by edges. But once you got it down there's not really a huge advantage to it anymore. I very rarely break out the tape even when wetsanding anymore.
 
I tape up when using a rotary near trim that borders paint. It can be easy to bump the trim when trying to equally polish all of the paint 100% equally.
 
I do the same thing as Shine and billzabub. I only tape off trim, lights, sunroof glass, etc. It's to keep the polish from staining those pieces.



But sometimes I've seen people tape up all of the body seams, and painted trim (like along the side of the doors on some cars).



I'm assuming its to keep polish dust out of those areas. But arent' you sacrificing uniform polishing to the entire panel?



I've also heard it said that some cars have thinner paint near the edges of the panels. Is that true?
 
Less said:
I do the same thing as Shine and billzabub. I only tape off trim, lights, sunroof glass, etc. It's to keep the polish from staining those pieces.



But sometimes I've seen people tape up all of the body seams, and painted trim (like along the side of the doors on some cars).



I'm assuming its to keep polish dust out of those areas. But arent' you sacrificing uniform polishing to the entire panel?



I've also heard it said that some cars have thinner paint near the edges of the panels. Is that true?
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It's usually so they don't machine polish the edges where paint is thinner.
 
I'll be purchasing a Megs G220 shortly and was also curious about the the masking tape in relation to where/where not to put it etc.

Any help for a newbie machine user in relation to the above appreciated.......;)
 
dibbs26 said:
I'll be purchasing a Megs G220 shortly and was also curious about the the masking tape in relation to where/where not to put it etc.

Any help for a newbie machine user in relation to the above appreciated.......;)
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You won't have to worry about burning anything with that machine.
 
Danase said:
You won't have to worry about burning anything with that machine.
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Thanks for the replies guys.

Danase how about polish residue between the panels?, I thought the tape would have been placed there for this reason..........
 
Just tape it off because even if you don't burn it, you can in fact easily stain it, and worse get some residue under the trim with which you'll have fun later... it's true once you get more experience, especially on certain cars, you don't tape as much, but I think it's still very important in order to get everything polished... even if the product I'm using won't stain trim, which it usually will, there's no way I'll feel comfortable with the pad butting up against an antenna, BMW grilles, etc. etc.
 
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