The bumper cover is painted.
And as expected, the surface prep was less than
perfect well done. Since I didn't have any grey primer, I couldn't see how many and how deep the sanding scratches (and you ALWAYS have them) were. Since the finest paper I used was 220 grit, it left quite a few. The 80 grit I started with to knock everything down and get all the bad paint off left some deep ones, and I should have (at least) sanded it down with some 600 to smooth it out.
This is the only picture I could get that shows the surface decently, and you can see I still have more work to do.
It's pretty "rough", and it looks like these coats of black paint will be my "primer".
I just wonder how tough this stuff is to sand. I'll let it dry/cure a few days, and then WET sand it with 600.
I admire your standards and am very impressed you didn't paint your garage floor.
ReplyDeleteI didn't come out to an acceptable. It looks really bad now that the paint has dried and shrunk. Deep scratches in the bumper that the "clear primer" didn't fill, a couple of good-sized dings on the ends that I completely missed, and the rough texture of the bare urethane where it degraded from weathering didn't completely sand out.
DeleteI blew it, and now I have to make it right. Sometimes I think I'm my own "worst customer"!
Use what you got, and the 600 will probably work. If not, you're looking at thin coats of urethane to 'fill', then primer and sand again.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely going to need some more filler. The two dings I missed just jump right out at you. I don't know how "thick" this paint is, so I don't know how well it filled in any flaws.
DeleteGoing to start sanding it tomorrow. I want to make sure it's fully cured, and it's been high 80's/low 90's the last two days, and tomorrow will be 48 hrs.
"Own worst customer."
ReplyDeleteI get that and it's been a long hard road for me to learn the different shades between acceptable and perfect.
if you don't fix it, it will bother you always.
Oh, it'll do more than just "bother" me, it'll drive me NUTZ!
DeleteI ground out the dings last night, along with a few other areas that needed a dab of filler. And I found that 3M/Bondo have tubes of the filler that have twice as much material as the little syringes, at a slightly higher cost, so I ordered a few of those. After I sand the coating back, I'll fill all the "rough" areas where the urethane was degraded, as well as the dings, and sand it down again, in steps, with progressively finer grit.
And I ordered some of the special "flexible" primer. I don't don't know if it's a "High Build" primer, but at least it's a different color, so I'll be able to SEE what I'm sanding, and tell how well it fills the remaining scratches.