i am going to pull my dash and paint it this winter. once i paint it, as hard as i try not to, i know there will be overspray on a lot of the small "chrome" pieces. how can i get the overspray off without damaging the metal? i was thinking of using some real fine steel wool?

Take the time and use the blue painters tape and cover the items you dont want painted, then paint the dash.

Take the time and use the blue painters tape and cover the items you dont want painted, then paint the dash.

im going to do that but there are some spots that have small lettering and its nearly impossible to get exactly everything taped up without not getting everything or covering too much

After painting, a simple little match works great for those teeny letters.

I used to build model cars and used a match for painting trim and emblems on them.
Got a 1:25 model of a Riviera and you can actually read the fender emblem--even the dots on the i's are there.

Also about 15 yrs ago, I painted the cluster panel on my 79 C-10.
A testors silver marking pen was used to replace the "chrome" accents on the dash.
Still looks pretty darn good. (painted it a Dove Grey w/silver accents).
Also painted the gage housings a floresent (sp) orange so now the dash lights have a red hue to them (had to paint all the needles white--'cause they disappeared at night)

You can always try painting some oil on the small spots with a Q-Tip then paint it and wipe off the oil.:yes:

wow does that work reliably?

It has for me very well.:yes:

LOTS of threads here on repainting dashes, and the lettering afterward. I think it would be VERY hard to keep the original lettering and chrome right... but it's also tricky to get it redone and look right. Not impossible to resilver the lettering and edges, but to me, it rarely looks as "right" as the original...

1badss got it right! I have done the same. Obviously be very careful not to get it newhere the paint needs to be. I used a very small paint brush from a craft store.