xsboost90

if you can let it dry w/o baking it,it will cure alittle glossier at least before you buff. Production painting methods include baking the paint but that causes the rapid evaporation of the thinners in them and makes the surface die down. Laquer should dry pretty fast w/o baking anyway as long as your not below like 70-80 degrees, because the thinners are much more harsh and evaporate faster.

oh, and i also did this bumper delete on my and nine44's car.

littleaxe

Most powder coating operations have curing ovens large enough to handle your bumper. Try googling "powder coating minnesota".

A small custom coating company should be able to help, Indian Coatings, Inc. in Oklahoma would.


________________

84 Guards Red 944 N/A

Danno

A lot of the orange-peel effect is caused by the high-solids low VOC paints. I saw that regulation coming and stocked up on a couple gallons of DuPont Imron... Looks dripping wet even when it's dry...

xsboost90

ewwwww, imron....careful w/ that stuff.

Lead Foot 944

I WILL SECOND THAT...... I like PPG and Sikkens.....

Damian

IceShark

UPDATE:

I played a heat lamp up and down the painted bumper for over 24 hours, the areas the lamp was on got to about 130*F. On the 22nd I did a wet sand with 1000 grit. Sanding went OK and the paper cut the paint grains clean rather than clogging and rolling paint. Maybe the fact that I had soap in the sanding water had something to do with that.

I'm now watching the paint morph back to a gloss! So clearly it is not ready to be sanded and finished. Guess I'm stuck with a long drying process.

So any of you that use the Plasti-kote spray product (acrylic lacquer), don't plan on finishing the project for a month or two after spraying.

mochman

soap in the water does help morphing into a gloss? That's freaky did you scuff it after baking to release the solvents and then color sand it?
Imron is way nasty stuff. I have a fresh air system I use when i spray most of the time, the thing that made me buy it was imron that stuff is deadly.

IceShark

Mochman,

I don't think the soap does anything about morphing back to gloss. It just lubricates the paint surface and encapulates the paint and abrasive flecks on the sanding surface as you "color sand" and wash off. I still don't get why they call it "color sand" since it is plain old wet sanding, though with a fairly fine grit. I read one article where a guy was going up to 12,000 grit on his color sanding! Now that is really crazy.

Hey, I sent you an e-mail regarding what you wanted to do on lighting. Didn't hear back from you, what do you want to do?

IceShark

Well the bumper is done and polished up with 3M fine cut buffing compound. The surface is perfect enough to shave by as in a mirror.

The only problem is it is still soft so who knows when I can put it back on the car. I guess I will play the heat lamp up and down the bumper for a few weeks and see what happens.

So for anyone that is thinking about this modification don't go using the Plasti-kote acrylic lacquer product if you want it to be totally done anytime soon. I hope I'm still alive when it finally gets cooked off.

zehnd

Dan make sure you post photos of your car. I don't ever remember seeing it.

This is something I would like to do.

IceShark

Don,

When this bumper finally dries enough to put it back on the car I will take some pictures. Who knows when that will be because I'm sort of worried about puting the urathane end caps/molding back on the bumper ends without having them dent the paint.

I know some people also want to see what the clear front blinkers and sidemarkers look like.

97xray

Dan, I want pics so we can compare our concurrent efforts... though I have a feeling I know the outcome, and they are of course opposite ends of the car!
Anyhow - I'm glad to hear that it turned out nicely.

97xray

So, I meant that yours would be smoother... if that wasn't obvious (don't want you thinking I'm an arrogant fatty whos mother hates him) (wait, what?)