Bit of advice - panel washes

[Spiny]

With the Trabi almost complete, I'm starting to look ahead to the next project. It got sprayed over summer (far too cold to think about spraying in the garage at the moment so I had to get spraying done well in advance), but now I'm starting to look at washing the panel gaps. Up until now it's been a relatively easy task, but the next car has a two-tone paint of yellow over black.

 

Now for a light colour such as yellow, I'd normally use a grey wash to prevent the panel gap being too pronounced, and I certainly want to avoid using the black wash on a yellow car for that very reason. But... the break between the two colours is 2/3rds of the way down the door, and if I use the grey on the yellow it will bleed into the black and I would expect almost certainly look wrong.

 

So for question for the Britmodeller collective wisdom is "What would be a good way to stop the wash bleeding down onto the black?". My first thought is to temporarily put a small but of blue-tak on the car and push it into the panel gap to act as a sort of dam, but I'm worried that would lift the paint and/or clear coat.

 

Any advice will be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Cooper645]

I was going to suggest blu tak, I have used it as a mask before for painting and had no issues. Maybe get an old shell/ donor plasticard with line scribed and test it out. 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2019 by Cooper645

[Spiny]

Thanks, good to hear that blue-tak has worked ok for others. That sounds a good call on the scribe line test too - I don't have a donor body to test on but conveniently I do have the spoon which I tested the paints on still sitting around

[Chrissy_J]

I've never had a problem with Blu-Tak (I only have the genuine stuff) lifting paint or lacquer, especially from a gloss surface. But yeah, definitely try it for yourself; your technique may vary from mine.

[s.e.charles]

don't airplane & AFV guys use clay for camouflage patterns with good results? I would think any residue could come off with a bud dampened with isopropyl alcohol.

[Ben Brown]

I found this tutorial about washes on car models: How to Use Washes to Accent Panel Lines  His other tutorials are very good, too.

 

Also, another vote for Blue Tac. I've used it in the past for masking and never had any trouble with it damaging the underlying paint, although I do remove it as soon as possible.

 

Ben

[Spiny]

Thanks. The good news is that initial trials on the spoon showed no damage to the paint at all... so now it's undergoing the ultimate test of stretched and sticky Blu-tak (the proper stuff) being left on the spoon for a week. Barring problems, I intend to apply the washes this weekend.