Tail smoking project, clear coat dilemmas

[agjake11]

how did you do the polishing?

might want to try the clear top coat also. i used it on my surround and it worked great and would be worth a shot maybe

 

[DarrenWS6]

how did you do the polishing?

might want to try the clear top coat also. i used it on my surround and it worked great and would be worth a shot maybe

Put a half pea sized amount onto a foam pad, worked it in roughly, dried with a plush MF, then re-did it but was gentle.

 

[nubuilder]

So you did 3 coats of Dupli-Color Acrylic Enamel?

I'd say Rustolium has too much orange-peel to it.

Of the 3, I like Dupli-Color the best; definitely the smoothest.

 

[agjake11]

Darren might try buffing it harder. I know when I did my first set it was a pain to buff them by hand but with the power ball I used on my second set they were much easier

 

[DarrenWS6]

So you did 3 coats of Dupli-Color Acrylic Enamel?

I'd say Rustolium has too much orange-peel to it.

Of the 3, I like Dupli-Color the best; definitely the smoothest.

Dupli has 4. The Rustolium and Krylon layers were all done in the same hour, the Dupli had 2 coats 15min between, 12hr dry, wetsand 2000 grit, and then another 2 with the same process. I agree, much better looking, to get the orange peel out of the other coats I would have to press much harder, which will just scrape the clear. Im just wondering why it doesn't clarify as well, maybe 4 coats is overkill? stick to just 2 maybe? I'm quite positive it wasn't fault to the compound and polish.

 

[mblouir]

I think when I did mine I did two thick layers of clear, sanding between each process. Since it's a thicker layer than the VHT you don't have to worry about sanding through the layer quite as much.

 

[DarrenWS6]

Well my curiousness got me going, and I tried something unique. In the process, I also figured out how Ford does the Harley Davidson edition taillights. Here is a stock light, compared to the stock Harley Davidson tail lamp for compare,

A popular project with the Ford guys is headlamp painting, and fog lamp painting which is rare but able to do to match the heads in 04 - 05 models. I hated how the reverse lens is so chrome even through the smoked lens, as seen here,


So I decided to put the whole light in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes to weaken adhesive. I then pried the lens open with a flathead driver. To my surprise, inside the 04 - 08 F150 tail lamp is all chrome,

I thought only the reverse and brake light sections were chrome. So I got a black tank shirt and layed it inside the light, and put the lens back over, and low & behold, it looked much blacker, exactly like the Harley tails, except smoked on the outside.

With Flash

So now i'm temped to paint the inner shells of my stock lamps temporarily. I would prefer the reverse section smoked anyways as it does look much better. So hopefully my F150 buds here will keep this on the lay low cause I haven't seen this done on the other site yet, would make a cool surprise.

So to get on with what I wanted to do, I scratched the chrome visible section with 400 grit,

Masked the rest off, also stuck the tape on my shirt a couple times to weaken the adhesive, headlamp/fog/tail lamp chrome is very weak and tape can rip out the fake chrome paint finish leaving black spots.

Did 3 basic shoots with Krylon fushion satin black I had left over

Let it dry for a couple hours, un-taped.

Much better looking in the reverse section IMO. It darkened it very much. I am now debating painting the rest of the shell for the brake light, but the smoked lens looks already too dark for my likings, it looks very dark with the black shirt under it. But this will give me a good project for me to introduce soon, DIY Harley tails, $12 vs $140

 

[mblouir]

Dude that's sick! Nice find. You should completely redo them (pull the VHT off with lacquer thinner) and do a write-up on how to make your own Harley tails.

 

[DarrenWS6]

Dude that's sick! Nice find. You should completely redo them (pull the VHT off with lacquer thinner) and do a write-up on how to make your own Harley tails.

I was thinking of that, I dont wanna strip it all off but I want to lighten the darkness some, but thats unable to happen I would imagine.

I will be doing the DIY Harley tails soon, just need time. Hopefully no one has done it yet, i'm going to ask Patman what all he knows about the 04+ tails, he's ripped open a few tails before so i'm wondering if he knows. Its the same process as doing the headlamps though, but I haven't heard of too many people doing this, No one to be exact .

 

[Truckguy24]