1. For new parts, wash the entire piece thoroughly with a red scotchbrite pad and comet. The comet gets it very clean and the abrasiveness of it along with the scotchbrite pad scuffs it up very nicely.
2. Rinse it off very thoroughly. You have to get all the comet residue off.
3. For unpainted plastic the next step is adhesion promoter. One coat is all that's required. There was one area that needed to be sanded out on the bumper so make sure to clean it thoroughly with a tack cloth and use the adhesion promoter before re-priming.
4. I primed the entire bumper with "Flex Fill" primer. Don’t try to get full coverage with the first coat. Do a nice light coat, wait 15mins and do another. Let that dry for 1/2 hour or so and then lightly sand with 320 grit. The primer goes on with a bit of texture so you're just trying to knock it down. If you get runs int he primer you have to sand them out and possibly reprime so be carefull.
5. Wipe all the sanding dust off with a clean cloth. Then use a tack cloth to ensure that there’s no dust at all! Then I used a cloth (not the same as the one I used before) with some brake clean on it to make sure there’s no grease or oil from my hands on the piece. Brake clean dries with no residue and won’t harm the primer.
6. Now spray the color. Again, you’re not trying to get full coverage with the first coat. Put down a nice light coat and don’t worry if it’s not even all over. Wait 15 mins and do another light coat. Now you should have pretty good even coverage. Wait 15 more minutes and do another coat. This time you’re looking for any patchiness or areas that aren’t even. Let that dry at least an hour. Here are some small pieces before clear.
7. At this point a pro or experienced painter would probably color sand. I’ve never done that and am not sure the correct procedure so I didn’t. I used a grey scotchbrite pad (the finest) and LIGHTLY wiped down one area of the bumper to see if it was better but that turned out to be a bad idea so I did another light coat over that. I think the right thing to do would be to let it dry for a day and then wet sand with something like 1000 grit, but I was too scared to screw up the paint.
8. So now I just did three light coats of clear. The clearcoat I used came out of the can really heavy so it was difficult to do light even coats. Again, I think a better painter would have done something to smooth the surface of the clear as well but I didn’t.
And the finished product...
Don't ask me any complicated questions cuz I will not know the answers.
