i just did this today with some rustoleum lens tint. available at autozone. added some LEDs to the brakes/ turn signals but my cell phone doesnt take a quick picture so i could get them while blinking. ill try to get some night pics too.

 

Looks good. You should shoot some clear on there.

 

looks............. boring. You should wetsand them with 1000 grit until level, polish them numerously throughout until they shine, then shoot them with 4 coats of Dupli-Color Acrylic Enamel clear, sanding with 2000 grit wet in-between until fully smooth and chalky looking, polish, and wax them a week later.

 

thanks guys. and darren, that is what i was hoping they would come out like. when they were wet they looked JUST like that. then they dried and got darker and have a rouch texture to them. i thought of trying to sand them but didnt know if it would come off or not and was also worried about scrathing the actual lens. but thank you. i will try what you said. the way yours looks is pretty much exactly what i was going for. and i saw my LEDs at night finally. they look pretty sweet. i got one quick pic on my cell phone. actually since i left my cellphone in my truck, i had to go get it and took another pic from the side to show the LEDs better than the night pic does. LEDs are hooked up so they come on with turn signal and brakes.

 

ok i bought some 1000 and 2000 auto sandpaper and the acrylic enamel clear. i have never wet sanded anything before but i am assuming it is just sanding while keeping a constant, light flow of water on it while sanding. and will they start clearing up when i am sanding? just wondering when i should know when to stop. darren, you are right. compared to yours they do look really dull. thanks for the info. i appreciate it. especially since tinted tails are illegal here. they are a little too dark. if they turn out like yours they should be fine tho.

 

just wondering how you got that black border? did you spray the back of it too to get double the darkness?

 

You will want to squeeze in some dawn dish soap and make it very sudsy and lubricated so you do not scratch things up. Only sand in one direction, north to south is best. Circular motions or changing N - S, E - W will induce scratches. And do not put down any pressure, very very light finger pressure ( not the tips, the fingers ) or use a soft sanding block if available. Not really needed, I just sanded from the N - S side of the light with my fingers parallel with the lines in the lights ( so my hand was going left to right ) Just hit the bare tails with a light 1000 wet sand, polish them out with a foam pad and wipe off with a micro fiber.

Shake the hell out of the clear can so its all level and no bubbles, spray it 6" - 8" away at a steady pace, do 2 layers and it should look similar to this. Going in a N - S is also a good lay down proceedure for this shape lamp. After an hour, wet sand it like how you did earlier, but with the 2000 grit. Keep wiping it dry with a random plush towel, and if its looking chalky, you are doing it right. If you see little dark dots or streaks left, those are areas that will need smoothed out, so keep wet sanding until it is all level, but not with too much pressure! Your final result when you compound and polish should be real nice, then hit them with some swirl correction products and wax them a week later, you will have gloss.

Masked the entire lamp off, and sprayed the outer border.
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/v...e/DSC04984.jpg

If you also noticed in the shiny shot of the lamp, the reverse section is painted black, but the rest is not. That is how I figured out the Harley D tail light effect.

 

thanks man, very much appreciated. i will try doing this tomorrow. lol was gonna say im doing it unless it rains but i dont think that really matters since ill be wetsanding. j/k i wouldnt do it in the rain because i wouldnt be able to see what i was doing very well. but thanks. i just hope they turn out ok. and yeah i just noticed the black section of the reverse. that looks sweet. did you pull the lens apart to do that? also i think i will try for that border effect. ill just shoot it with the lens tint from behind so the paint is on the inside. that will darken it up. it will also make my LEDs stand out a little more i think.

 

changed your sig huh? looks nice! but then again, the old one was nice too. i think i like the new one better tho. except you REALLY need a pic of a f-117 nighthawk instead of that other plane(which i cant tell what it is).

 

Yeah, changed my wheels, needed a new sig. The plane is an F-35, which I build.

 

ah, ok. guess it helps to know the reason behind it lol

 

I dont think shooting it from the under side will work because as is, it sits on a black background and does not show black well. The little reflective lines need to be smoked from the outside to accomplish the look.

And yes, I pulled it apart first and stuck a black shirt in the side and it looked like a Harley tail, so that motivated me to try it on my truck's tails.

 

lol i figured out a way to practice doing the sanding and stuff. i am 1 month away from moving so i am going thru some stuff and found the clear plastic that came with an action figure i bought years ago that has no value now. well i can spray the tint on it and try to wetsand it to practice. it is soft enough where it will probably scratch if i sand too much or too hard and it has rounded edges so i can see how light of pressure i need to use. you were lucky you had a cracked tail to use. but i think i may have found a really good alternative.

 

well i got them wetsanded with 1000 and then 2000, then polished, then clearcoated 4x with 2000grit wetsandeing in between each coat and also polishing between each coat. the came out looking great but still nowhere near as shiny as yours. they are really smoothe and they ARE shiny but they dont have as good of a gloss as yours. maybe its because mine are darker??? i dont know. i did the 3rd brake light as well but i messed it up. i got it 99%fixed. somehow i sanded harder on the right side than the other side so my right cargo light became normal color again while the left was still black. i resprayed evenly and tried again with the same effect except i KNOW i wasnt sanding harder on the right. i was actually trying harder on the left side trying to even it out. well then i just sprayed the right side untill it became about the same darkness, then did the whole thing evenly. then i wetsanded again. i got it to look pretty good considering what i did. now it is just too dark and it wasnt dry enough to handle apparently when i put it back in. it seemed dry enough but when i started putting pressure on it to put it back in place, i got my fingerprints in it. so now i have to wetsand my fingerprints out and try getting it lighter to match the tails more. they are 100x smoother than they were but still like i said, not as glossy. pics were taken with my cell phone so thats what the grainyness/blurriness is from. they look better than this in person. first pic is in the sunlight, 2nd and 3rd are in the garage in the shade. it started getting windy while the last coat of clear was drying so i had to keep them farther back in the garage to keep the garage dirt from kicking up onto them. this is them after 4 clearcoats and polish.

 

not enough wet sanding.