The basic reason for masking up is to protect indoor and outdoor areas that you don’t want to overspray or paint on. Protect your surfaces from unnecessary paint or concrete splatter with Mask Up Outdoors.
Every decorative concrete applicator working in the concrete resurfacing industry and using a spray-on concrete system or concrete sealers knows how important a pretaped masking film is to a job.
They will save both time and money as it increases the efficiency of the job by using good masking products and sound surface preparation techniques to effectively do concrete resurfacing or painting.
Even though this could be seen as the most vital step for a successful job we still find applicators using a variety of methods and tools to make this an efficient and effective part of surface preparation.
Therefore, to start masking you will need three things:
Firstly, you will need Barefoot Concrete’s Mask Up Outdoors product
Secondly, you will need to be efficient and effective in masking up and protecting outdoor surfaces
Thirdly, you may need a tool to speed up the process
The first thing we recommend is using a good product. Barefoot Concrete has designed a product that is fit for purpose for the decorative concrete resurfacing industry.
Mask Up Outdoors is a high quality, industrial-grade, multi-purpose pre-taped masking film that is suitable for masking up outdoor areas in diverse weather conditions and is fit for purpose across many different industries.
Why is it different? Because it has been designed for the outdoors with superior adhesion. As such it will hold up better in outdoor windy conditions better than any other market. It also has great UV resistance as well as waterproof properties so it can resist moisture and cling to outdoor surfaces.
Its a great product for protecting outdoor concrete, walls, glass, aluminium, pillars, pool surrounds, gates, garage doors and fences when painting or spraying on and sealing concrete overlays for decorative concrete resurfacing.
Secondly, things work best when we use good processes that are efficient and save us time on the job. As such, the functional design is critical to how the applicators apply the product so that their work is easy.
The best way to apply Mask Up Outdoors is at ground level and the masking film pulled upwards and secured to the wall by tagging with bits of masking tape.
The quality and durability of the Mask Up Outdoors are extremely important as it has to attach to outdoor brick, concrete, smooth and rough surfaces, and slightly damp surfaces at ground level and not allow seepage or bleeding through onto the surface it is supposed to protect.
Therefore, the process is greatly affected by the features of the product so it can be applied efficiently. All Mask Up pre-taped masking film has an electrostatic charge to help to keep the masking film in place and cling to surfaces for ease of use and when using spray equipment in windy conditions.
Thirdly, some applicators use innovative tools to help speed up the process, as you can see from the main video. This masking tool enables the applicator to mask up areas much faster than not using a tool.
When using a masking tool you want to start out with a good process where you mask to the wall at ground level to minimize bleed through onto the surface. The tape is a pressure-sensitive adhesive so as you go stick the end of the masking paper down and walk your fingers back towards the masker, pressing the tape onto the surface as you go.
When you are ready for more masking, press your fingers down on the masked wall to create tension, and simply pull out another length of masking as you go. Rinse and repeat.
When it does come time to cut the masking, use a box cutter or scissors, tear at an angle, as opposed to placing all of the teeth of the blade to the paper. This allows a smooth, clean line to tear off every time.
Probably the biggest trick in making sure your masking job is successful, is going back and tacking your paper down to the surface about every meter. When you spray the pressure may cause the masking film or tape to loosen so make sure it adheres firmly to the surface.
Tacking that masking tape and film down properly will prevent any overspray on the protected surfaces. from sneaking up under where it’s unwanted. Also tape any seams where two pieces of pre-taped masking film connect by using Barefoot’ Concrete’s masking tape to you don’t have gaps in your protective masking.
My last tip for you is this, make sure that you have good coverage in every direction. Don’t leave any spaces that may be vulnerable to overspray if you do not cover it. Don’t forget to tack it down so it doesn’t kick up from the force of the pressure of the hopper gun.
Finally, one of the keys to masking is remembering that it is always better to over mask than to under mask. It’s going to take much less time to over mask than it would to try to remove overspray from your surface, that’s for sure! Especially something like brick!
Masking up with Mask Up Outdoors is so cheap, so really go overboard to ensure that you’re not going to have any overspray messing up your plans at the end of a long day!
Go to our Facebook page to see a video of the Barefoot Concrete Mask Up Outdoors pre-taped masking film application in action!