Painting front grill so ,i purchased a nice 74 grill complete on ebay for 10.00 us,ive striped the amber with chrome metal besel turn signals and the chrome and red trim Maverick logo. Im prepairing the plastic grill for paint as im going with a black grill instead of the grey with plated chrome on the plastic. Ive been stripping the plastic grill of the flaking chrome with a wire wheel and wire brush . know my question is ,any ideas to do a great job of striping the old flaking chrome ? and what kind of primmer should i use for preping the plastic for a rattle can paint job?. I also would like to paint it a matte colored black ,not gloss and not flat,a black in the middle of flat and gloss . I will post pics tomorrow of my job before and after . I would like all input ,so my job makes this finished maverick look great ,not average.
I don't know about the flaking chrome. I have painted a few grills. I used a scotch brite pad after thoroughly washing them with soap and water. Wash again after scuffing them with the scotch brite pad. There are rattle can products designed to promote paint adhesion. I used one called Bull Dog. After letting the grill thoroughly dry for a good day in the sun (from washing) I sprayed 3 light coats of the Bull Dog. Spray it dry. That means don't goop it on holding the can close. Stay back. It dries pretty quickly, but I waited a day to spray the satin black/semi-gloss black paint on. I used a brand called Sems. Very good stuff. Both of the products are available online, or through AutoBody/Paint supply stores. It is more expensive than Rustoleum or any brand you buy in a hardware store, but it coats very well. I tried getting old cheap paint off of a grill once...not fun. Pay a little more and you will be happy. http://www.levineautoparts.com/buladprom.html Good luck. Seth
I think you would have been a lot better off if you had gotten a non-chrome grille. I've tried stripping chrome from plastic before and it was a pain in the butt. I finally gave up. You might wind up having to find a different grille and just cutting your losses before it's over with. It's possible to spend way more time on something than it would ever be worth.
i clean all my ...plastic parts...in a bead blaster. i did a guys grill the other day. he was going to paint it and when i finished bead blasting and washing it he left it that way. ...don't hold the blaster in one spot...keep it moving. i don't know about removing the chrome...i did one once and used a razor blade then blasted. ...
Yes, cleaning a regular grille is no problem whether you scuff pad it or glass bead it but you definitely can't glass bead the chrome off without destroying the grille and razor blading all the chrome from an LDO grille would likely take hours if you can even do it without gouging the plastic all up. In my opinion, I think my friend Jimmy has picked the wrong type of grille to be painting unless he just paints over the chrome and see how it comes out.
I've never heard or this trick before, but it sounds interesting. If you get thirsty, you'll have plenty to drink. http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/mp_cola.htm The fun part would be finding something large enough to submerge an entire grill in.
Makes you think hard about that stuff being in your gut, I've heard that Cola will dissolve a steak pretty fast, too. Yet Coke remains the soda of choice for me.. Hmm
Yeah. I did the nail in the coke thing in grade school for the science fair. I think the difference is that it's not really in our bodies for that long maybe...
Yeah you are probably right, it's funny I used to think that " burn" in the mouth if you held it there for a few seconds was just the carbonation... Yikes!
Well before you go destroying a good grille check out this thread over on the Vintage-Mustang forum where he used hydrochloric acid to strip chrome from tail light bezels on a 70 Mustang. Not saying that Coke will have this effect but you want to make sure that your not going to ruin something here. - Matt
