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.