i bought a brand new ground effects piece to replace the broken one on my car and plan to paint this weekend. right now, it has no paint, just that gray plastic look, so im gonna paint it before i put it on the car. i also wanted to redo the nose because of the rock chips and what not from the road.

what is the best way to go about painting these, being that they are plastic and not metal. for the nose, should i sand it, or just spray right over it? primer or no primer for either? would i need a clear coat to go on top of the paint?

these are the main things im worried about. any other tips and tricks you can share would be greatly appreciated as well.

 

anybody?

 

Not sure if this is the absolute best way, but in my experience I have always done the following.

Sand to ruff up the surface, usually with 400 grit or so, depending on what the primer calls for. Used a urethane primer, then sand primer, followed by a urethane base coat clear coat system.

I have also used epoxy paint on one also.

Both ways have lasted years for me, and still have not peeled or cracked.

One guy I know had his crack, but then again, he hit the wall of his garage with his car.
But short of Knight Industry 2000 paint, not sure what would survive a front-end collision.

So there you go, it may not be “by the book”, but it seems to work for me.

 

Yes you will definatly need to use primer. i am in the process of a complete and i allready have my bumpers and gfx done. I aslo sanded my bumper with 180 then primer.

 

Your best bet is to find out if the part has primer on it from the factory. If it is a primed part, sand it with 500 grit or finer,if you sand with anything courser you will have to seal it so your scratches wont show, if it is unprimed DONT use a sandpaper or you will cause it to (fuzzup)you will want to use a grey scotchbrite. After you scuff the part buy some Bulldog Adhesion Promoter( on plastic parts you must use an adhesion promoter for paint to stick) and that goes for primer to. On your rock chips just sand and prime with 220 grit or finer,if you use courser than that you can cause the plastic to swell or warp. And my personal recomendation is base clear paint . Its way more user friendly After its been applied to the car.(far more easy to buff).

 

thanks for the replies.

where can i get base clear paint? my plan was to buy a can of automotive paint that matched the color of the car but if that wont look very good then i wont use it.

 

As much as the MODs have been moving threads to "appropriate" areas I am suprised that this is still in the appearance board.

Seriously there are some real body men that hang around that paint and body board and might be able to better answer your questions in better detail.

 

So what your saying is im not a paint and bodyman, ? Ive managed a shop for 2 years and worked as a tech for 7 . I dont believe i have to hang out in the paint and body board to know what im talking about.

 

Hey Roasted, good advice.... most people just want to use dupli-color paint and think they are doin somethin great, lol Listen up people roasted got it right!!!

 

they must be real shy then. i got the same thread posted in that board too and so far, zero replies.

but anyway,

 

isnt there some kind of clearcoat that must be used on rubber and plastic parts that doesnt allow the clear to crack? I had my bumper cover and front valance painted last summer and it turned out perfect but now the clear is cracking all over the place and its been sitting in the garage. I could have swore I read somewhere that there is some special clear or maybe something you add to the clear when you spray plastic and rubber panels. Somethingthat lets the clear flex

 

Its called a flex additive and you just add it to your clear, But if your car mainly just sits and you know you havent hit anything with your bumper it sounds like your bumper is delaminating and that is the paint techs fault and you should talk to him about fixing that problem.

 

The body shop is now out of buisness or has moved somewhere else. So, I am out of luck. I may just have to deal with it and get the whole car done next winter. Can this flex additive go on sheetmetal panels too? I want to strip my car down to a shell and thenhave it sprayed all at once with the panels off the car but I am afraid that the color wont match dead on or the metallic wont match when the panels are put back on the car. I want all the panels painted off the car so that I dont get edges. The worse place for clear to bild up or cover is where the round effect attach to the car. I would never want them painted while on the car. What happens down the road if you have to take it off for some reason. Now your gonna have an edge there forever.
I just want to know that the paint will look perfect if I have all my panels off the car while they are being sprayed.

Oh and another big plus for that is that they san be cut and buffed off the car which makes detailing the finsihed car a WHOLE lot easier.
I plan on painting my car NBM or some shade of metallic blue.

 

I agree with you wanting to have everything removed before painting, It makes for a much better finished product. As for your question on the flexadditive , there really is no need for flex additive on sheet metal parts for the fact that the product is designed to stay flexible permenantly. The downfall to putting it on your car complete is that it is a **** to sand and polish after the fact .It keeps a rbbury consistency. It would kind of like buffing a football. No fun at all. And if your sheetmetal flexes enough to crack the clear your buying new sheet metal anyway if you get my drift lol.

 

I have flex additive on my spoiler and have had no spidering or cracking. When I did not have it on after a month or two the spider cracks were everywhere, just from the wind moving my spoiler. I will always have the flexon my spoiler from now on.