Before or after?

[dkpbxman]

I'm about to paint most of the inside of my house; living room, dining room and center hallway.
I'm not good enough, or steady handed enough, to not put paint where I don't want it. So I'll be using a lot of painter's tape.
Is it better to take off the tape while the paint is still wet or should I wait till it dries?
I've heard both.

Thanks,

[kactuskid]

I've personally had a lot better luck with taking the tape off before the paint fully dries. Once the paint is dry the tape can be a real pain to get off.

[X Y Scaling]

I agree 100%. Take it off before it dries..
Plus pull it off slowly at a sharp angle so the tape won't fall back onto the wet paint. Go slow in case you might have waited too long. Watch for dry paint that might pull off your newly painted surface with the tape. That shouldn't happen if you pull it off in less than a half hour though.

Let us know how it goes, Tom

[dkpbxman]

Taking the tape off while the paint is still wet makes sense to me. The problem is that 1) I taped all the trim, 2)I primed everything(twice), 3)I put on 2 top coats & 4)took the tape off.

When I pulled off the tape, small sections of new paint came off with it.

While the top coat was still wet, the primer underneath had dried and bonded to the tape.

When I pulled off the tape the "primer coat" was pulled up also and that caused the top coat to come up.

If I had taken off the old tape while the primer was still wet, let it dry and then re-taped, I probably would've been alright. But I tried to kill two birds with one stone and because of that I had to do some careful touch-up.

Live and learn