All Red Tails.....sorta

[greggydrift]

So my first DIY wasn't a COMPLETE success. I tried doing the All-red taillights using wet-sanding and stained glass paint. However, the hardware store(Home Depot) only offered me 400 as their highest grit and I wasn't able to find Krylon stained glass anywhere except online, so I ended up with Valspar stained glass paint. The result was not really what I was hoping for....

My question is, what is your opinion on where I should go from here? Red/clears are out of the question as of now because I'm tight on money. Any suggestions on making it look a little better? Thanks

Kind of a bright cherry red that I'm not really a fan of....

[JoshM]

Ugh. lol



Sand off all that paint. Buy clear red vinyl to put over the tails.

[greggydrift]

Ugh. lol



Sand off all that paint. Buy clear red vinyl to put over the tails.

Should I be looking at 2000 grit sandpaper and wetsanding? And for the vinyl, that's something I'd be able to find off of ebay?

[JoshM]

And for the vinyl, that's something I'd be able to find off of ebay?

Yes. Not only is it very inexpensive, it's also easily reversible if you don't like it later down the road.

[greggydrift]

Could I then put some "smoke" vinyl on top of the red? Or is that too much?

[JoshM]

Could I then put some "smoke" vinyl on top of the red? Or is that too much?

Sure, you could. However having two layers of film over your tails would decrease light output.

If you want a smoked look, just get smoked vinyl.

[jdmwannabee]

how many coats of paint did you lay down?

[greggydrift]

Hmmm.. the smoked sounds good. I just saw a thread with some smoked out amber signals(which I was trying to get rid of by painting them red) and the amber actually looks okay, so I think I'll go with that. Does the sanding show through the vinyl?

Sorry for the tons of questions, thanks for putting up with this haha

[greggydrift]

how many coats of paint did you lay down?

I did 4 light coats. Although the can did leak at points, which got annoying because then I got splotches(quite a few of them), which I tried immediately wiping off with a cloth towel with little success. So I just sprayed the next coat over it...

[blackex]

hobby lobby sell some stain spray paint. red tint vynal probably best option since you can take it off easily

[ihaspotato]

i did this with my 01 golf. used Transparent Candy Apple red spray paint. http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXHF97&P=FR

before

after

[t1ger]

those are just fugly, no offens...

why you dont re-sand them, and then go to nearest carpainter, and ask him to overspray them with tinted clearcoat? it cannot cost more than that vinyl from ebay or tint can...

[davenport_st]

i did this with my 01 golf. used Transparent Candy Apple red spray paint. http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXHF97&P=FR

I was going to mention this as well.

How well the paint would hold up in severe weather would be my only concern...

[nate'sCB7]

If you want to avoid all the hours of sanding off that paint, just use this stuff.
Its a paint remover, very good stuff.
http://www.amazon.com/Strip-Paint-Fi.../dp/B002KMC8ME

[ihaspotato]

I was going to mention this as well.

How well the paint would hold up in severe weather would be my only concern...

i just did mine this summer. in the heat and the humidity of the mid west its done pretty good. we'll have to see how it holds up in the winter.