Painting my headlights black and masking tape is removing silver! help

[quinnGoes]

I'm following this guide most closely: http://www.generation-edge.info/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=641. but i have also read many other guides, and none have mentioned my problem.

I am masking off the silver reflective area with medium adhesion masking tape and when i pull the tape away it is pulling off the silver finish with it. What am I doing wrong? are my headlights ruined or is there a paint to replace that reflective finish?

 

[quinnGoes]

I tried sticking the tape to a cotton shirt a few times first, then stuck it to the housing, then slowly pulled it off and it still pulled up little parts of the silver.

 

[racinranger]

soak the tape with wd-40. wait an hour then yank it up. the saturated tape will come off like butter not remove a thing, the wd-40 eats up the glue. we used to use this trick on inspection stickers in the junkyard..........

 

[baddis]

use a good quality tape like 3m for body work. the solvents in the paint are soaking through the tape into the glue it sounds like

 

[quinnGoes]

hmm I soaked the old tape in goo gone and pealed it off, but it still pulled up some of the chrome. I went to home depot and got some rustoleum metallic spray paint and some delicates scotch masking tape. hopefully thatll solve my problems. I also bought some rubber cement and a paint brush and was thinking of using that for masking. has anyone tried that?