Frog tape pulling emulsion off

Emma133

Hi, wondered if anyone could help, I have painted my girls room in pink and lilac alternate walls. I used the frog tape to cut in the corners of the room - only one wall so far. The first corner tape came off fantastic lovely neat line, the second corner the tape has ripped off all the paint in great clumps where the tape was.

Anyone any idea what I did wrong?, and how do I rectify this? do I sand the paint and recoat till its covered?

I'm not sure why its only pulled one side of the wall and not the other, worried to use the tape on the rest of the room now incase it does the same but need to use tape for the straight lines :S

Thanks in advance

nickj_2

has the tape pulled all the paint off so that it has gone back to the plaster ?

Emma133

Hi its pulled the emulsion off so its back to the primer coat

jenniemiller177

Frog tape? Same as duct tape? Never heard of Frog tape before.

nickj_2

hi emma, you can try sanding the paint down , if you can get it smooth with no edges showing you might be lucky , if it looks like the dogs dinner then you will have to get a bit of fine surface filler and fill the bits where the paint has been pulled off , give it a light sand down so it is smooth , then touch that bit up with some thinned emulsion(with water) , then you have 2 options
if you feel brave you can try cutting the corner in without using the tape , if you have a decent brush , hold it as you would a pen and then apply a bit of pressure , the bristles will form a straight line and then you can paint a nice straight line , if you do have any bits that aren't quite right carefully wipe it straight with a bit of rag
.or try putting the tape on so only 1 edge of the tape is sticking to the wall rather than sticking it all down flat, and then peel off carefully

good luck

Emma133

Thank you Nick I will try your suggestions.

john.h

Is it a low tack masking tape?

John...

Emma133

Its green frog tape, supposedly designed for things like this....

john.h

Emma133 wrote: »

Its green frog tape, supposedly designed for things like this....

Looking on there website its the yellow frog tape you need.. The green is a medium adhesion one..

John..

Emma133

ahh thanks John will get that one in for the next project, will have to order it off the net. Local diy shop only stocks green!

Ben84

Cutting in edges by hand takes a little practice at first, but I think it gives a better finish if done by hand and saves a lot of time and tape later. Besides, it's a skill worth having as it's the best way to paint windows. Where people have put tape on the glass then pulled it off later, I find the paint often is lifted a bit and the water can get in and push it off much quicker.

You need a decent quality brush with the hairs neatly grouped together and if it's a long edge being painted you need to load it with a good amount of paint worked in to the hairs. Start with the end of the brush against the wall, about a cm away from the corner, with the width of the brush vertical to the edge. Move the brush along the wall steadily and bring it in to the corner, continuing it along the line and increasing pressure to steadily push out the paint. Wider brushes, although looking rather inelegant are better really and they can hold more paint, so for a long line like floor to ceiling I might use a 2-3" wide brush. For a window fame or something, you will have to use something smaller, but really I don't associate very little brushes with giving the neatest edges so I avoid them where possible. Anyway, repeating the process if you run out of paint and overlapping makes for a neat edge that covers the sections where you started slightly away from the corner. If doing a corner of a room for example, I would start in the middle and go up to the ceiling, then start again in the middle, just above the previous start to cover it and go down to the floor.