going from a painted trim piece back to regular trim. tips/ideas?

the front wiper cowl of my supra was painted by a previous owner, it was a terrible job, auto hobby store paint so the clear cracked and peeled terribly on it. i was planning on stripping it and just repainting it the same color as the car, but after stripping it it would look just as good in the stock black exterior trim type but coated nicely.

question is, since i have never done any repair on trim before aside from painting. has anyone had success with doing a fine sanding of trim pieces before using something like the turtle wax endura shine tire coating. will sanding marks from say 600 or 800 show up through the coating? its got a lot of lines and detail in it. so that could help hide imperfections, but i want to know whether or not this will pan out before i decide to coat the whole thing in a durable coating, or even a section which may not be too telling for the whole thing once its done being coated.


anyone who has sanded and used a trim coating on trim pieces who can chime in, it would be very helpful, thanks.

bump.

nobody has tried sanding and then using a trim coating like c4 or endura shine afterwards with good or bad success?? about to go try it, but i have no test pieces, the last thing i want is a coating impregnated into the surface of the plastic ruining the adhesion for paint later if it has to be done that way.

If it's a typical wiper cowling, I can't imagine that sanding it is going to come out well. And no, I don't think even the black-tinted trim restorers like Solution Finish or the Turtle Wax trim product you were trying to mention are going to hide sanding marks.

My suggestion (and take this with a grain of salt) is to chemically strip only, and if you can't do that, get a junkyard piece of trim that hasn't been painted. I think you'll have better luck restoring that with something like DLux than trying to sand what you have.

Sanding trim might be uncharted territory for most. I did use one of those heavy duty pot scrubbers, the metal ones with the loops like a metal loofa, on one of my extremely oxidized mud guards on my Forester then coated with the Endura Shine trim product.

It kind of seems like acrylic paint. Reminds me, need to put an update in the Endura Shine tread. I have had it 50/50 on a couple of different plastic trim pieces since mid/late April and is holding up well.

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well i went ahead and did a test part and it went ok. i initially did a chemical strip with bumper stripper (plastic safe stripper). and brush scrub to remove loose paint. it was 99% clean except for some fine mesh areas which won't be noticeable unless you are shoving a flashlight at it from 2 inches away.

i did a test spot with the endura shine, and went with the endura shine over the other coating i had because the endurashine has a black tint to it and is almost like paint but extremely thin. so far so good, there are some blotchy areas that i may go back with some 2000-3000 grit paper to smooth out before recoating with endura shine after it's complete.

the only threads on here about restoring plastic trim mention just buying new pieces, and i don't feel like spending 300 on a cosmetic improvement when i have tools to do a job and have it turn out at least 95% as good as stock/new

Sounds good. Let us know how it turned out and put up some pics if you can.

The TW product can be kind of finicky and streaky. It can be hard to get the right amount on the applicator. To much and it's streaky/blotchy, to little and it will dry to quick. I would say to try to put it on light and do two or three coats. Also, don't wipe over numerous times when applying. It dries so fast that it tends to cause issues if you do. Wipe till you get even coverage, then don't reapply until it has dried for 10-15 minutes.

And you can clean up or remove with alcohol.

I can get some after pictures but I dont have any before or freshly stripped pics. I'm terrible about documenting with pictures...

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Paint it with Wurth Bumper /Trim paint. Leaves a nice satin deep black original color. I use a Scotch Brite Green Pad to rough the surface. The paint is actually more of a coating and when applied in thin coats resembles fresh new parts color. The coating is flexible so takes longer to dry between coats (follow can directions.) I have used it on grilles, inner fenders and window trim so far with good results.