Brian wrote:
Having spent the past 13 years in the plastics industry, I have to ask a
question. Any coating applied to a plastic sub-strate will only result in a
finish quality as good as that of the substrate. If you polish an injection
molding tool to a mirror finish, you can then meatlize the molded part to
mirror levels. The centers on my wheels are chipping/flaking near the edges.
Simply painting over it will, I think look much like a house that has had
the loose flaking paint scrapped off (with much left in place), and painted
over. Anyone have any thoughts on a way to strip the centers of the original
finish prior to painting ???
Thanks - Brian
Brian
Your post stirred something in my memory banks. I did a\ctually remove the
original paint, or at least most of it, and smoothed down the inners with
fine sandpaper, so I was left to spray a smooth surface. It actually looks
OK to me, and even prompted my dear wife to comment that I had done a
reasonable job. This is the same wife who asks questions as to why my DIY
shelves in the cloakroom look like cack, why are there screws sticking out
through the wall opposite to where I had put up some coat hooks, and why the
doors to some of the kitchen cabinets are at a jaunty angle like something
from a Salvador Dali exhibition? All good questions and well phrased, but
this critical eye did say my wheel inners were OK. So: fine sandpaper, two
coats of silver and two coats of lacquer did it for me, but I cannot
possibly enter into a discussion with you on plastics as you are obviously
THE man on that subject.
I agree with you on the finished results following scraping off flaky paint,
having just re-done my roof, but from ground level my other half won’t
notice that, unless she asks NASA to point the Hubble telescope at our house
and send her the close-ups.
Doc
89 Sov, nice wheel centres, shame about the roof.*****************************