I am going to try masking and spraying; does anyone know if the raised letter ~1/8" beveled sides are the letter color or tailgate color?

 

Mask the bevel at the point where it curves into the surface of the raised letter.

 

Hi - thanks for the reply. I did not quite understand...the masking goes on the flat tailgate and the bevel gets painted with the letters? or the bevel is the tailgate color?

 

You want the flat part of the letter AND the rounded part of the letter where it becomes the bevel to be the color of the letter. Therefore you mask the bevel up to where it rounds into the letter. This is not rocket science, there will be no final exam, this is your truck so do what you think looks good to you. What I am telling you is how the letters looked when painted at the factory.

 

In 1999 when I painted my truck for the first time I had my body man paint the Ford letters Sungate Ivory, the color of the grille. He painted the letters first, then taped them and then painted the tailgate Meadow Green. They didn't come out so good. So a few years later I had the tailgate repainted and put stick on letters I bought from MidFifty.

If you really wanted painted letters, I wander if it would work if you used those letters to mask the raised letters?

 

Here is a pic of my 49 tailgate


It came out nice