painted sider molding

[RonTL]

Question#1

I have a 1994 honda civic ex. It has these side molding pieces that go down the middle of the car, across the door, onto the front fender (there made out of rubber i think). My car is red and the side moldings are black. i will be taking them off. ill Clean them, prime them and paint them. Should i spray a clear coat over it, polish it, or what? because i figure they might be dull, compared to the rest of the vehicle.



question #2

I have filled in some holes on my car with some bondo and sanded the bondo down with 80grit sandpaper. Them i used 180 grit sandpaper and smoothed it out some more. Should i go ahead and prime it and paint it, or should i be doing something else. and after i paint it, should i clear coat it, polish it, or what? (same as above)( might be dull, compared to the rest of the car)

and i was told i would have to wet sand it after i paint it, because it would be farther out than the paint surounding it. If so, how should i do that?

[Duckman]

a story for you...



a few years ago, I owned a 1981 mustang. the previous own (or one of them) was a frickin` moron... he painted the car himself with latex house paint. it was amusing. needless to say, I took it to the car wash and pressure washed the car, and all the paint just flew off. I did this on purpose. We had decided to repaint the car, and at least bring it back to some sort of life (though not a restoration job.. just a driveable car) My stepdad and I were not well moneyed, so we did the prep work ourselves. stripped the entire car down to bare metal, bondoed, sanded, bondoed, sanded etc etc. it was quite a decent job in my mind (but i was 19 and didn`t know jack about body work). we took it to get painted (after priming etc) and got it back a few days later. not only was the colour not right, but the paint job was lacking... the painter was a major sh#thead... but his claim was that the prepwork was bad... who knows at this point...



what I`m getting at is, even though it`s just the body moulding, you need to really make sure you do a good job prepping it. If I were you, I`d sand it using a high grit paper.. 180 to me sounds maybe a bit too rough still...

[RonTL]

too late. already primed and painted the molding. It`s dull though, compared to the rest of the car. Im going to spray some clear coat on it. any tips or suggestions?

[du3ce]

im in the process of doing this to my accord sideskirts, the sideskirts are platic i sanded it down first applied the primer then sanded it with 600 grit then spray 2 coats of paint, tommorow im gonna spray 2 coats of clear coat and let it dry for 3 days and apply rubbing compound on it.