Cleaning up a bad masking job?

[grunyon]

Hey guys. I just purchased a 2004 Dodge SRT-4 that to the trained eye you can tell has been resprayed in areas. In some spots, they have done a bad making job along plastic trim. A specific example is they got paint on the plastic hood scoop insert. It is a textured plastic so I`m told clay won`t work. I was thinking maybe some kind of solvant, but I don`t want to damage or stain the plastic or remove paint that I want to stay.



Any ideas?

[Accumulator]

grunyon- Welcome to Autopia!



Sorry to hear they did the respraying incorrectly (trim should be removed, not masked, and any masking they *do* do oughta be undetectable).



Lacquer thinner oughta take it off the textured plastic, just don`t get it on the paint you want to stay. Yeah, that might be tricky to do.



Another thing to try is "overspray clay", which is much more abrasive/aggressive than normal detailing clay. Gotta watch that you don`t abrade it too much though, or else you`ll mess with the texture of the trim (and keep it off the surrounding paint). The overspray clays are often red in color, and if your normal detailing supply store doesn`t have it you can get it at autopaint/body supply stores.



If you can take things apart that`d be a lot better. But watch for "bridging", where the paint bridges gaps (say, between the plastic trim and the body panel). If this bridged paint chips (and it almost always does anyhow, that`s why it`s an issue) it`ll take "paint you want to stay" with it Result: gotta get it repainted again (properly).



Sorry if this all sounds really pessimistic, but as I think you know it`s not a good situation. Sometimes it`s not all *that* big a deal though, so think positive and just be *VERY* careful taking off the overspray.

[grunyon]

grunyon- Welcome to Autopia!



Sorry to hear they did the respraying incorrectly (trim should be removed, not masked, and any masking they *do* do oughta be undetectable).



Lacquer thinner oughta take it off the textured plastic, just don`t get it on the paint you want to stay. Yeah, that might be tricky to do.



Another thing to try is "overspray clay", which is much more abrasive/aggressive than normal detailing clay. Gotta watch that you don`t abrade it too much though, or else you`ll mess with the texture of the trim (and keep it off the surrounding paint). The overspray clays are often red in color, and if your normal detailing supply store doesn`t have it you can get it at autopaint/body supply stores.



If you can take things apart that`d be a lot better. But watch for "bridging", where the paint bridges gaps (say, between the plastic trim and the body panel). If this bridged paint chips (and it almost always does anyhow, that`s why it`s an issue) it`ll take "paint you want to stay" with it Result: gotta get it repainted again (properly).



Sorry if this all sounds really pessimistic, but as I think you know it`s not a good situation. Sometimes it`s not all *that* big a deal though, so think positive and just be *VERY* careful taking off the overspray.

Thanks for the reply and welcome. The sensitive areas that concern me are the plastic hood scoop insert and the plastic grill in my front bumper. I could probably find a way to remove these, or maybe stick a piece of paper in between to protect the paint I want to keep.



The rest is out of sight (like deep in wheel wells or undercarraige) so I`m not too concerned about that.

[Accumulator]

The sensitive areas that concern me are the plastic hood scoop insert and the plastic grill in my front bumper. I could probably find a way to remove these, or maybe stick a piece of paper in between to protect the paint I want to keep..

I`d probably lean towards *not* trying to remove then if there`s a visible "bridging" between those pieces and the surrounding body panel, but I`d also be nervous about the paint cracking there and turning into a big headache.



OTOH, to be a little more positive, I have an area that had a similar problem (yeah, the bodyshop messed up; that painter`s no longer there ). The paint did chip back from where it was bridged and I just let it go thinking "I`ll have it fixed right later..". Well, I never did get it fixed; it isn`t perfect but it never got worse the way I expected it to.