Estes Alien Invader Paint Fix - Part 1, TIP

A few years back I was talking to a local guitar repairman. Early on he had worked for Tobias guitars, learning the finer points of lutherie.
He drilled the screw holes for a tailpiece install. After drilling he realized one hole was in the wrong place, off by a good half inch.
Expecting the guitar body would have to be thrown away, he went to his boss expecting the worse.
His boss didn't bat an eye and simply said: "Put an inlay there. Make it look like you meant to do that."
This rocket fix is a little like that. Sometimes you can cover things and make them better than before.

I didn't like the looks of the gloss black paint on the rear half of the recent Alien Invader build. Too many inside surfaces were hard to get smooth and reach with the black spray paint.
Some areas got more paint than others. The gloss finish showed every unreachable glue line and rough area.

This was one of those finished projects I let sit for a few months while I figured out a solution.
I'll attempt to paint over the gloss black fin areas with a dusting of flat clear acrylic.

The picture shows me brushing off any dust from the gloss black. Black seems to attract dust. A soft brush got most of it off before spraying the flat clear.

One problem was the upper decal. The low end of the wrap isn't in a straight line. I decided to mask it off, half gloss and half flat - like it was meant to be that way!

I didn't use Scotch tape, this clear line isn't critical. Before setting the masking tape down I stuck and lifted the sticky side on my jeans pant leg a few times. Some jeans fibers will stay on the sticky tape and diminish its tackiness. I don't want to risk lifting the decal edges.

Only one piece of masking tape was used for the edge mask. The tape was gently set on an angle and bunched over itself over the curve. The upper yellow body was covered with a wrap of printer paper and a small piece of tape to hold it down.