Masking engine components for painting

[rumbler]

I'm working on what I hope to be a fine point judging vehicle and am getting ready to paint the engine. I understand from the RG&JS that the main engine components were painted before assembly.

My question: Were the components machined before or after painting? If they were machined after painting then all the machined areas would be unfinished. Examples would be the spot-facing under the valve and timing cover bolts and under the cylinder head nuts. There is also face machining under my distributor lock screw. Plus some of the gasket joint surfaces (think water inlet and outlet, valve cover, timing covers) may peek out where joint alignments weren't quite perfect.

Please tell me if I'm overthinking this as I really don't want to increase my work due to more masking required to keep paint off of all machined areas. Plus, I feel like those areas would deserve a coat of clear to keep them from rusting.

Should I masked the machined areas? Your collective feedback appreciated!
Thank you.

 

[SeaSlugs]

They would be machined before painting for sure - no way would you be able to prevent scratches nor debris from getting into the block if that were the case.

Now what they masked off im not sure.

 

[JonC]

One of the books I have said Ford used masking templates to cover the areas they did not want paint on, like the head area of the block and intake manifold.