How to Create Perfect Curved Lines for Automotive Painting

Automotive paint allows car owners to customise their vehicles and create a completely unique look to suit them. This can often include painting curved lines, whether this is for a design or a few curved pinstriping lines.

So as automotive professionals, how can you make sure you’re achieving the best possible finish on these types of paint jobs? At JTAPE, we’ve designed our tapes to be used for all kinds of customisation jobs, including painting the perfect curved lines with defined edges. From our customising tape to our range of fine line masking tapes, we have a few tricks up our sleeve to help you out.

Best Masking Tape for Curved Lines: What to Use

Wondering which masking tape is best suited for creating the perfect curved lines your customers are looking for? Look no further. Below, we’ll explain our top two tapes for customising and take you through some of their best properties.

Customising Tape

If flexibility is what you’re after, our customising tape is the perfect product for you. Not only will it easily bend to any shape and contour, but it also comes in eight 1.5mm strips to help you consistently achieve the line widths you want. Our customising tape is heat resistant up to 150 °C/302°F and leaves no residue on removal, making it perfect for custom paint jobs.

Fine Line Masking Tape

Our range of fine line tapes includes these different colours: purple, blue, green and orange. While each of these has its own distinct properties, they’re all excellent for masking curved lines onto the bodywork of a vehicle. Like our customising tape, they also won’t leave any residue on the surface when removed, meaning you’ll be left with clean curved lines finished to a professional standard.

Using Fine Line Masking Tape for Masking Curved Lines

Purchased our fine line tape and ready to start painting curved lines? Here, we’ll explain how to use our high-quality range of fine line masking tapes to create crisp defined lines that leave no adhesive residue behind.

The process is simple. All you need to do is apply the tape to a clean surface on the car and curve it to the desired shape. The flexibility of the tape makes this process quick and easy since it’ll conform in any way you want it to. Whether you’re looking for a slight bend or harsh curves, our fine line tape can do it all.

First, mark out where you want the curve to be and ensure you have a rough idea of where it should start and end. You can then start to play around with your fine line masking tape to find the ideal placement. Since the tape won’t leave any residue, it’s easy to place and re-place it as needed.

It can often take a few attempts before you settle on the placement for a curved line that matches the existing bodywork and lines on the vehicle. It’s best to work with the existing lines if the customer doesn’t want anything too drastic as these will help your thin lines look more uniform. For a more unique look, it might be worth straying away from the existing curves and lines to help your new pinstriping or customisation work stand out.

Using Customising Tape for Masking Curved Lines

Customising tape, as we’ve mentioned, is also a great option for masking curved lines. The main difference between this tape and our fine line tape application is that this can be torn into smaller stripes. This allows you to create curved, clean lines adjacent to one another, as is necessary for pinstriping applications. The flexibility of the tape also allows for masking tight contours and the creation of any creative curves, making it the perfect solution for customised car bodywork, motorbikes and helmets.

Before spray painting, you’ll need to decide how many lines you want and where you want these to be. For example, you could place the tape on a curve and pull two stripes away to create two thin painted lines.

Looking to nail your pinstriping application? Check out our guide to discover the easiest method for getting the job done.

To achieve the best finish, you might require additional masking tapes or films to protect the surrounding surfaces from overspray. This will ensure the spray paint is only applied to the curved lines you’re trying to create, which will help keep these crisp and sharp.

 Using our product and these top tips, you should be masking curved lines onto any vehicle to the professional standard you and your clients want. Looking for a feathered finish instead of clean, crisp lines? Try our flexi no edge blending tape for curved lines with no harsh edges.

Visit our online store to discover the full range of JTAPE products available, or contact us today to find your local distributor.