Metal finishing Q&As since 1989

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Liquid masking by powder painting

Hi,
in our company we use masking tape for protection of several metal sheet products.
But it takes more time, to mask and after painting process to unmask.
Do you know about some liquid product, like glue, which will be able to protect sheet against paint and during baking, will be able to smelt for example.
Thank you,

Hana Michálková
- Pardubice, Czech Republic
2007

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Liquid maskants are normally harder and more costly to get off than tape. You do not want the mask to burn or char while the paint is being cured and it would probably smut cured paint.
Some of the professional painters may have better information. Silicon plugs work great for holes and vinyl caps work for low temp cure paint bolts and etc. Mechanical masking might prove worth the cost and the mess, but those cases will be a little rare.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2007

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I made the statement to a supplier of masking products to the powder coating industry that if someone could come up with a tape that would evaporate in the cure cycle so it wouldn't be necessary to unmask parts after painting that they would be a millionaire. He just laughed and said that it would never happen. Such short sighted people! Anyway, it's pretty much high temp tape or nothing right now. However, I did try to use clear RTV as a masking tool and it worked very well, I put it on some studs and it went through the entire system including paint without degrading. The problem became getting the RTV off afterwards turning into a nightmare! It was a mess and did not want to come off of the studs. They were paint free when we finally got them cleaned up.

Sheldon Taylor
supply chain electronics
Wake Forest, North Carolina
2007