im doing a grand marquis now thats black with silver pinstripes. Im taping them off while i do the paint correction, and then running the flex over them a couple times with m205 and a grey pad on speed 5 afterward. so far theyre cleaning up great with no damage.
Sometimes. I did it on my Blazer for the *milder* rotary work but not when I was hammering it. Seemed to get away with it but in hindsight I think it was dumb. So generally I wouldn't risk it (even with a DA/RO polisher, maybe not even by hand).
Or are pin stripes all different depending on the car?
Yeah, pretty much so...it's one of those things where you just never know what you can get away with, especially long-term.
I'm assuming we're talking about adhesive/plastic striping, not painted-on pinstripes.
Taped stripes can get messed up pretty easily in some cases, I messed up such stuff *by hand* back in the day (fortunately I think they make better stuff these days).
If you take off too much of the top film the stripes/etc. will become vulnerable to UV damage and then you're looking at replacement. That's what I'd *really* be worried about; everything will look OK for now but !look out! a year later.
I don't tape them off, but I don't deliberately polish hard on them either. I sort of consider them as an edge to avoid while polishing and try to stay off of them.
