OK, this was *really* a pain. I mean, I knew it would be going in, but yeesh. I am glad I abandoned my previous paint scheme, where all the fins were to be outlined. For now I just had to do the helical pieces, and that was more than enough.
Remember I'm basically masking everything but the edges of three helixes. Here's the finished product:
The outside parts weren't too bad. I used the tape for curves to trace along the edge, and then filled in with the standard yellow tape. It's not clear that I needed to use the curvy tape at all; the curves are gentle enough that I probably could have done it with the narrow yellow tape just fine.
For some reason I chose to bevel the corners a bit. I'm not sure if it was a good or bad idea. We'll see.
Wow, that looks pretty crappo when zoomed in that close. I will make sure not to let anyone get that close to it when it's done.
The "insides" of the helixes were a whole other kettle of fish. In addition to needing to work around the connected fins (challenging!), what made it *frustrating* was simply the limited access in there to my hands, scissors, tweezers... anything. Eventually I battled through it and got it done. It didn't even take that much time, but many of the pieces were just so hard to get to lay correctly. Here's one of them:
Even getting the camera in a position to take this shot was difficult. The end result is far from perfect but should be good enough.
I've had problems with paint sneaking through gaps in the blue tape in the past, so this time I made sure there were multiple layers of it, so even if some edges lift (and they absolutely will), there should still be more tape under there to protect it.
Finally, I know that the various tape seams and joints will allow seepage. This time for the first time I'll try applying a sealing layer of clear coat (technique recommended by Micromeister) before the Key Lime paint. We'll see how it goes.
Weather permitting, I'll try to lay down the paint on July 4.
