can anyone tell me how to achieve a Two Tone Checkerboard with paint.

Thanks

Rob T

Get lost of masking tape, a good fine marking pen, a few blades & an X-Acto knife, and a flexible ruler.

Paint your base colour (shoudl be the lighter of teh two) and let dry. then leave it for a few days. (so teh paint is really cured!) Always paint teh lighter colour first, so the darker colour won't show through. if you paint the surface black first, then yellow. the yellow will be 'influenced' by the black underneath, and will 'show though' turning your yellow into a muddy yellow. If you lay the yellow first, the black on top, it will [rarely] influence the darker colour.

I'm sure we've all tried to re-paint a room white, from a shocking colour, only to find it requires a few coats of paint! same reason!)

Draw your cheker board patttern on the painted surface. You shoudl then have a painted surface with a bunch of vertical and horizontal lines. It'll be up to you how you lay them out..

then: (there's a choice here..)

Then with masking tape (buy the good stuff, the $10 rolls!) start masking off the squares. either make a bunch of squares and ley them as required. or lay strips and cut as required.

Or lay it down in strips, missing teh odd square. But you'll only be getting about half the squares, and you'll need to repeat for the missed squares after the first painting pass. (you'll be putting your 2nd colour in two sessions. allow curing time between!)

With tape, watch how you 'build it up' because, as you add layers, you can create pockets taht paint will seep into.

OR

Get a roll of 'frisket film" (art supply / airbrush stores) and lay it down. then, with the ruler and a sharp X-Acto knife, cut along the lines previously laid down. Then just peel up the squares as required. Note: this will only work of flat surfaces. the frisket film dosen't 'bend / conform' well around curves.

Frisket film comes in rolls, a few feet long, and a few inches / feet wide (6", 12", 15", etc..) but is generally not cheap. Also being a film, won't fully adhere / mask on a cloth. So, you might need to add some 'liquid mask'

OR, get paint masks from a vinyl cutter I did a test piece and it was SO EASY.

Just a thought.. or you can cut a bunch of squares.

It'll take forever if you use tape. I've got a running tapered checkerboard on the wings of my Illusion
and it takes a lot of the work out of the job if you use liquid masker. Apply the liquid and after it dries
just cut out the squares you want to paint. Leaves a much finer paint line than tape also as it doesn't
bleed under.

tommy s

I agree with tommy, the liquid mask is great for this, just make sure you put it on right and take it off right, it takes technique but I got good results the first time.

Forget masking it with tape

here is a pic of a test one I did using paint masks. Was very easy. I have a buddy that I cut a bunch of checker masks for, hope to get pics of it soon. Its gonna be awesome!!

Thanks