Masking tape, commonly known as painters tape, is an adhesive tape used to protect surfaces during a painting job.
It can be used alone to make clean edges or with a plastic film (or kraft paper) to protect walls, floors, baseboards or windows. Essential accessory for any painting job, here is how to choose a masking tape.
What is a masking tape?
Masking tape is a lightly adhesive, easy-to-unroll, easy-to-tear paper tape that can be applied to many different surfaces and removed without leaving residue or causing damage to the painted surface. Its softness and low adhesion level make it ideal for many applications, both professional and non-professional.
Masking tape was originally used to cover automotive parts that were not to be painted. Today, this is still the most common application; however, because masking tape ensures clean, crisp edges and prevents paint from running, it is also used for all kinds of professional and DIY paint jobs.
What size should I choose for my masking tape?
When it comes to tape, size has less to do with the length of the tape on the roll (larger projects simply require multiple rolls of tape) than it does with the width and thickness of the tape. Both of these parameters are typically measured in millimeters (mm).
Narrower tape makes it easier to mask small areas, corners and tight spaces. On the other hand, wider tapes are better suited to cover larger areas and provide additional levels of protection against paint drips or splatters, for example.
There are many sizes of masking tape available – here is an example with rolls in sizes 19mm, 25mm, 30mm, 38mm and 50mm.
Masking tape or paint tape?
In the simplest terms, masking tape and painter’s tape are the same product. However, there are important similarities between the two, which makes choosing the right type of tape all the more important. To go into detail, painter’s tape is a sub-type of masking tape.
As a general rule, traditional masking tape is less sticky than specialty painter’s tape. In contrast, painter’s tape (often blue tape) is typically used for more specialized applications and to create clean, high-quality paint lines. It is designed to prevent paint drips and peels off easily, whereas masking tape is a much more versatile product.
How to mask your construction site ?
When preparing your room for painting, you need to protect the floors and furniture from paint drips. You can drape your furniture with old bed sheets and cover the floors with plastic sheeting, but when you paint, these can shift, inadvertently exposing the edges of furniture or leaving stains on the floors.
Here’s a summary of protective steps before painting:
1 – Cover the furniture with masking tape or old sheets
2 – Protect light switches with masking tape (see our complete article on this subject here)
3 – Cover windows and doors
4 – Cover boards and floor with pre-pasted masking paper
A handy accessory that will save you a lot of masking time is the M3000 handmasker from 3M. Allowing you to combine a roll of tape with plastic or kraft paper film, it allows you to quickly apply masking protection to any substrate.
Buy masking tape at the best price
Tesa, 3M, Alfa, etc… the big groups and generic brands are plentiful on the Internet. If you often order rolls for your painting jobs, it can quickly add up to hundreds of euros. That’s why we have developed Airless Discounter masking tapes, a low-cost consumable for quality masking.
They are available in rolls of 50 m in the following widths: 19mm, 25mm, 30mm, 38mm and 50mm. Thanks to its UV resistance, Airless Discounter Gold tapes can be used indoors and outdoors, from varnish to plaster to wall paint.To order your Airless Discounter tapes, simply click on the following links:
19 mm x 50 m – Price: 1,08€ plus VAT, Price per metre: 0,0216€ plus VAT.
25 mm x 50 m – Price: 1,42€ plus VAT, price per metre: 0,0284€ plus VAT.
30 mm x 50 m – Price: 1,67€ plus VAT, Price per metre: 0,0334€ plus VAT.
38 mm x 50 m – Price: 2,34€ plus VAT, Price per metre: 0,0468€ plus VAT.
50 mm x 50 m – price: 2,76€ plus VAT, price per metre: 0,0552€ plus VAT.
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