Has anybody painted the six cylinder valve cover that had "Chevrolet" painted on it? How did you do it where you had the back ground blue, and white letters on it, and have it come out nice? What was your method? Thanks.

Carefully mask off around the Chevrolet script with narrow vinyl tape. Then mask the rest of the painted valve cover completely and spray paint the Chevrolet script. When dry remove all masking tape.

There was a thread on another message board that delt with licence plate restoration, an to me is a simliar issue.

I think there may be more than one way to do this.

You could mask with 3M think blue tape, this stuff is more like a plastic tape and designed for flames, or seperating colors etc. Tape is tape. You could mask off the letters after painting them the right color.

The next would be to buy some of the special masking paper that is make, that adhears to the surface. You can then cut out the lettering with and exacto knife or similar on the cover. This stuff looks neat when they use it on tv, but I have no experience with it. You could do it negative like the tape, lay the paper over the letters pressing out the air and use an exacto to cut the letterin out so they stay covered.

The third, and my favorite would be to paint the top of the valve cover the color you want the letters to be. Once that has dried, you could then shoot the color that you want the cover to be. Once both have dried, you could use some 2000 grit wet sand, and "clean off" the lettering by wetsanding the overspray or light topcoat on the letters from the main color.
This is what most do on the plates.

Another is to use Oneshot lettering paint with a roller. Yes, small amounts built up with a steady hand, but with 4 inch rollers available, this would work. In fact, thats how they did the licence plates when they were new back in the day. mabey a small built up jig to keep the roller just above the letters could work.

Paint them by hand if you are the most of steady hands. I would use the one shot on this with some of the special pinstripe brushes sold.

Thanks for the help.

I have done this and to be honest, it turned out better than I have even hoped.

I wanted the letters on my valve cover to be silver. I first painted the valve cover silver. I then laid masking tape over the letters. I first laid it down gently, and came back and traced the letters and pressed the edges down as tight as possible. I then took a razor blade and cut out the letters, making sure to cut any areas where the tap overlapped one another from top layer to bottom.

the blue vinyl tape is call Fine Line

i have also painted the letters first and then coat grease or vaseline,then paint the rest ,paint won't stick to the grease,then wipe clean,also works too pait around orig. stickers etc