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Painting/finishing advise?

I'd like to touch up a black Fiesta XR2i front bumper and body kit which I've just bought. It's looking kind of dull and it seems like the lacquer has worn off in places. Additionally the bumper might need a few dabs of black paint in a patch where the original red paint is showing underneath.

my question is, what's the best sequence to carry this out in? I don't really want/need to strip it right down to bare plastic. If I just rub down the paintwork very gently with some 1200 grit wet&dry to score the surface, will the new black spray adhere to it OK? I'm just going to give it a once over with a Halfords black spray can. Basically I want to know if I need to give it a coat of primer first or whether spraying over the cleaned up paintwork is enough?

After that I'm going to give it a few coats of lacquer. for this, should I let the new paint dry thoroughly and then sand it before lacquering, or wait until it's just touch-dry and give it a light dusting with lacquer?

Cheers!

Reply to
skid00
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now that is a strange fetish

:P

Reply to
Glenn

Thanks doki, I asked a couple of bodyshops and they said about £175 to spray just the front bumper (which only cost me £20). I think I'll just rough it up a little and go over it with some lacquer seeing as the sun is like an oven anyway today.

Yep. That sounds easy enough. If I can save £300 and get a half decent result I'll be happy :)

Cheers.

Reply to
skid00

Yup.

It's probably enough. Bear in mind you'll need more than one can of paint though. I used about four cans to do a boot-spoiler and a front grille. You need LOTS and LOTS of THIN coats, or it'll look poop.

Wait until it's touch dry, and then as before, LOTS and LOTS of THIN coats. You'll prolly need more than one can of laquer.

Reply to
Nom

Four cans??! wow. I was thinking one can would cover me on the front bumper, plus I need to do my rear arches after treating some rust! Point taken though. The front bumper is huge and if I wanted to cover the whole lot with several coats I can imagine getting through a couple of litres.

The cool thing about painting on a nice day like today is that there's very little waiting between coats.

Cheers, skid00

Reply to
skid00

if you paint it without using flexible paint then it will crack 100% you will have as peeling bumper in 3 to 6 months and wish you did it properly in the first place. a decent bodyshop will only charge you about £100-150.

4 tins of spray will cost your nearly £40 you work it out.
Reply to
stevy666

OK. Maybe I should rub it down and start again. Can you get this flexible paint from halfords? I think I've seen bumper/trim paint in there. Cheers.

Reply to
skid00

Depends on the bumper, I had a set of Cav GSi bumpers and spoiler painted six years ago and it didn't crack. It was still going strong the last time I saw it.

Admittedly it was the work of a decent bodyshop, not spray cans. It will still normal paint tho, not flexi stuff.

Reply to
Lordy

Yeah, if the paint cracks I could always buy another bumper. At about £25 from a scrappy it seems ridiculous to pay another £175 for a paint job.

Reply to
skid00

Yep! ran into that today and blew a couple of days work. Had to rub it down and start again. I'll do it in the shade or in the late afternoon now when it's a bit cooler. The bumper was actually too hot to touch in the midday sun!

Reply to
skid00

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