Bye bye chrome bumper. hello color matched

So I was browsing advance auto parts today and came across this duplicolor perfect match spray...and what do you know...they have my paint code! Sweet now I have something to do today. I bought two cans of it and some sandpaper, then headed to O'reilly auto parts to buy a quart of clear and some catalyst. I also picked up another can of the silver there since advance only had two.

Here are some pics so far. I'm waiting on the last base coat to dry then i'm going to spray the clear. The clear will be sprayed with my HVLP gun.

Enjoy. I will post more pictures when its all done.

 

Nice!

 

Looks great so far, can't wait to see the finished product. Also, I always wanted to try to spray with an hvlp gun. How difficult is this? Thanks!

 

Its not too hard, you just have to play with the settings on the gun a little to get the right spray fan and amount of paint coming out. I usually just spray a wall or something to get it set right before I spray the piece i'm painting.

I just sprayed the first coat of clear, about 10-15 minutes flash and then the second coat goes on.


OBTW forgot to mention the steps I took for those insterested.

Take all the black trim off,

then I sanded with 400 grit on a DA sander changing paper fequently.

Then I wet sanded with 600 grit and a dawn dish soap and water mixture,

then washed it.

Then dried it off,

then wiped down with rubbing alcohol to clean any final residue.

Then I sprayed with the self etching primer, 3 light coats

Then 3 coats of base

Now spraying clear (I recommend wearing coveralls. clear gets sticky especially for hairy guys like me)

Follow all directions for proper dry/flash time.

 

Wish I had an hvlp gun.... Painting is fun, but prepping sucks

 

Wow, thanks so much for the info!

 

very nice job

 

Oh, yeah.... looks good.

 

1 more question, can that clear be sprayed without "reducing"? There are alot of chemicals and can be a bit confusing at times. It would suck to buy the paint/clear and screw up the mix before you even spray or worse, ruin your prep work and have to start all over again!

 

picsss

 

You dont have to reduce clear, you mix a catalyst in it which activates the clear and causes it to harden. Sometimes I will mix a tiny amount of reducer in the clear to let it lay flatter but the clear seems to be laying pretty flat today (perfect temp and low humidity today)

 

Sweet! Looks good so far man.

Would love to do the same with mine, but the Duplicolor "Color Match" for Toyota's Super White didn't match up for me when I tried my grille surround. Came out yellow at first. Then even after a second attempt the white was perfect, but still didn't match up perfectly and bugged the crap out of me. So I blasted it black and ordered a white grille from the dealer.
But would LOVE to get rid of that last bit of chrome! Thought about trading for a black bumper, but color matched would be ideal! Interested in how the final product turns out, and I give you props for the work. Just my grille surround was a bitch!

 

Ok I just finished the clear coat. Here are pics. I'm gonna let it dry overnight and put it back on tomorrow morning.

You can see my trusty harbor freight HVLP spray gun. I have painted many cars and many pieces of furniture with that thing. Cost me $65 about 4 years ago.

 

Cool, thanks again!

 

Hopefully it matches well! I tried that for my truck and it was close but you'd definitely notice the difference against the truck. I've got a superwhite though and I'm finding that white is a tough color to match!

Looks great so far!

 

Its hard to get a perfect match with paint unless you paint everything at the same time. Fortunately for the bumper, the black trim is there to "break up" the difference.

 

try automotivetouchup.com for the paint. I used them for when I painted my grille surround. Although I have BSP it is pretty much identical to the original paint on the rest of the truck. I used the aerosol can but they have paint for a spray gun which will probably give you a much better result.

Ill have to look back to another forum topic but im pretty someone us automotive touch up on a super white bumper and it turned out really good.

 

Looking forward to the finished product!

Sub'd

 

So when can I bring my truck up to you? haha

 

awsome! this is def my next project. i HATE my chrome bumper