Silver L's and paint: beware
 

Okay guys, over the weekend I started painting my tailgate to match the truck and I just finished tonight. Good news is I'm better at sanding and spray painting then I thought. Bad news is the color doesn't match :mad:

Anyway, according to the plastic-kote book the paint number for Ford's yn paint code is 8132. So I headed up to the local store and picked some up and went to work. After a few primer coats, silver paint coats and clear topcoats, this is what comes:

https://www.f150online.com/galleries...1260-14824.jpg
more pics at: here

It's to dark and not enough metal flakes. And it stands out.:mad: I haven't tried buffing it yet, but I doubt that will make much of a difference.

So next on my list is buying a nice top feed paint gun for my air compressor and visiting a good body shop who can mix me up the color I want. Or I'll just do all the prep work myself on the plastic parts I want painted and bring it up to a shop to have them paint it.

Actually... I don't think it looks bad at all. It might even look better with a different shade of silver IMO....

Hey Capt.
The quality of your work looks great, however I post baring bad news. Unless you blend into the tailgate you'll never get a perfect match, especially with silver. A 1psi differance in gun pressure will alter the color as will distance to the surface and spray technique..
Paul

I think it would look great if it were made shiney,,,, any ideas on how to make tailgate handle shiney silver??? or chrome??


~Toast

Thanks for the support guys!!!!

TZrider - you know I remember reading about the blending thing, but it was so long ago that I completely forgot it. So I was hoping for a perfect match, and didn't get it . Oh well, I still have a little touch up to do and then buff it.

Still going to get an paint gun though and get rid of spray paints.

whitetoast11 - they make spray paint like that, if I have time later I can try and photochop one of those pics for chrome. Or one of the other photochop wizards on here could do it? Very interesting idea though.

I gotta agree with AA_expert, it looks good, and I like the subtle color difference. All of the black trim painted that color might look pretty good. :cool:

Captain O,It still looks pretty nice!How much sanding to make the handle smooth enough to paint?
Thx,-Dave.

Dave- the sanding wasn't that bad. Took about 15 minutes for the initial sanding. First after removing the handle I sanded it with 240 grit, then when it looked like it was getting smoother I used 320 grit. When it was almost smooth, I wet sanded with 400. Then I used a sandable primer to get it as smooth as my patience would allow.

I'll be doing a write up with some picture sometime over the next few days.


uploaded some more pics, can be seen at:
http://captainoblivious.tripod.com/truck/tailgate.html

I got my silver from a supply place. I just said "YN for a 2001 Ford" , the color is perfect. Here's a thread

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...threadid=74282

the paint is dupont chromabase. which requires a 1:1 mixture with dupont chromabasemaker

My local custom paint shop sprayed my hood and wing. They asked if I wanted it blended and I told them to try w/o blending the fenders, etc. first. It came out a perfect match. I think they mixed it up from a computer match though.

Dave - just put up a small write-up about the painting and prep work

http://captainoblivious.tripod.com/truck/paint.html

...if anyone has notices anything I got wrong or has any tips or anything they feel would good to be added let me know.

I think it looks pretty good too. I would really like to shave my tailgate and get rid of the handle and blue oval badge. The SVT-150 would have to stay though.

needforspeed - I got your email and tried to reply, but it got bounced back to me as a invalid address :confused: Tried twice, can you give me your email.

looks good, can't tell it's a diff shade. I'm gonna try mine.;)

Captainoblivious, I've always had trouble with store bought paints matching. You might tru having a professiona lpaint store make you up some spray cans using your Ford paint code.

Silver will always be hard to match, but the red tht I got, was a perfect match. It takes afew weeks to dry completely, but fades right into a match.

Here in CA, you can't buy laquers, so I buy mine out of state. Laquers are much easier to apply, and cam be color sanded after
they are dry.

http://www.towerpaint.com/