Painting chrome grill cover.

So I want to paint the chrome on my grill. I'd like to try to match the rest of the black in the grill. Does anyone have any input on which black paint has worked/looked best. Thanks you.


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.105499,-84.595527

 

some people say its hard to get the chrome off but with a little bit of sand paper and a hole lot of time it can be done. It took me like three four days to complete my grill but im sure it can be done faster. I just wanted my grill to be almost perfect. Why dont you try to color match it to your truck?

 

I just did this last night on my 98... the hardest part was getting it off because the clips on the bottom where hard to get to and squeeze in so I could take it off the truck. After I got it off, I masked off everything I didn't want paint on, sanded and spray painted with rustoleum metallic black paint. The whole process took me an hour and a half give or take...

The catch to this is that you have to remove the shine "completely" with the sand paper. I used 150 grit to rough it up a bit, cross hatching the patterns to ensure complete sanding and then finish sanded with 180 grit in a uniform direction to hide cross hatching marks... When your done sanding, it'll look fuzzy/bury and not mirror like anymore, but will still have a sheen to it. After sanding, I wiped down with mineral spirits to remove dust, debris, any wax or grease and I let it dry off and then sprayed.

Before:

After:

 

Nice. That's perfect thanks so much!


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.105706,-84.595389

 

Could you post some pics of it on your truck? It looks cool so far.

 

Will do - painting my entire truck right now so it'll be a couple days

 

Cant wait to see what it looks like.

 

Same here - looks good off the truck, but I'm also doing the bumper with the same color (metal bits that are under the headlights) and the plastic part of the bumper, I'm bedlining... Rear bumper is all chrome (so again, black metallic paint will be applied) and the plastic step cover will be bedlined...

I'm not sure how it'll look, but I'll post pics up on my build thread when I'm done... my signature has that link. - you can check it out for more reference on the parts I'm talking about...

 

Here it is: Before and after shots of the front end - I broke the clips on the corner lights taking them off (old and brittle)

 

Did you use a clear coat after or just the metaillic paint?

 

Metallic*

 

no clear coat - just the metallic paint and some wax after 30 days. It's holding up well.

 

what kind of wax did you use?

 

I usually use meguiars - but on this truck, i just used the cheapest wax on the shelf - turned out to be some sort of turtle wax, but not the hard paste type, the liquid rub on/rub off type...

 

chrome on my 99 was peeling, and im anti chrome, so with some time, and a razor i peeled it ALL off. between that and a satoshi took a day.

 

make sure you sand really well before painting

 

yup, sanded alot. alot easier to get the plastic level then the cracked and peeling chrome.