In my bumper rebuild thread, Seattle2k asked (Here) if I could do a tutorial on the lip protector I made for my C-West VerII bumper.




I did take photos as I was working so I'll put a storyboard up here.
Got to re-size a couple so I'll get this up later.

 

As a start... here is my bumper after I had cut away all the damage from scraping...

fricken frightening



as I was fixing this I just realized that
1. I live in LA -- and our infrastructure is third world at best
2. I wasn't going to raise my car so the damage I was fixing was just going to come right back unless I did something about it.
3. I had extra glass and resin

 

1. So the first thing I did was to wrap the actual lip with a plastic barrier.
The last thing I wanted was to get resin on my freshly primed bumper.
Resin seeps into anything.. it even gets through the plastic if it doesn't set up fast enough.
I wanted to keep this plastic very thin so it would form to the bumper shape under the next protective layer



2. next comes aluminum foil.

I attached this with 3m Spray77 and formed it to the bumper tightly.
this took some work (because of the underlayer plastic... but I just couldn't take the chance to try without it).



it's not smooth here but don't worry - next step will deal with this.



I also covered the rest of the bumper with thick plastic/blue tape before continuing.

 

3. After the lip was coated with aluminum, I burnished the foil with the back side of a spoon.
really pushing all the creases down and modeling the surface to the bumper.
this also polishes the surface so the resin doesn't stick.



4. after that - get out the paste wax.
a couple of coats of release wax (or furniture wax -- or ever car wax).

5. I followed the wax with a light coat of PVA --
this isn't strictly necessary
but I'd sure feel like an ass if I hadn't used it and the glass had stuck to my newly repaired bumper...

 

now comes the glass.

6. mix the resin hot and apply a coat directly to the bumper - no glass, just resin.

7. after a couple of minutes it's set up enough to be tacky but not "wet"
the first layer of fabric goes on now.
the tacky base coat makes it very easy to layout the fabric.
all the fabric has been pre-cut and test fitted.

8. let resin tack up and then repeat. I used only two layers of fabric and then moved on to fiberglass mat for the final layers.



9. The fiberglass Mat goes on really easy - conforms to awkward shapes and can be pushed and pulled to fit.
I only did some minor sculpting of the form, so I did it by working directly with the resin and mat... shaping it wet and then sculpting it as it dried with shaping tools.
If you were going to real change the lip shape you should sculpt it before this point.
either before the aluminum or right after the glass fabric.

 

10. After the last layer has started to set up is the time to trim off any raged edges and do any rough form shaping (once the glass has set, good luck).

At this "soft" time you can use scissors and files and heavy grade sandpaper to really get the form right



11. It's also time to break out the Bondoglass or any other fiber infused body filler.
this messes with the glass much better than straight bondo.

12. get all the real dips and bulges filled or filed away and you can move on to a glaze coat..
I mostly use a razor blade to apply the glaze coat.
you're really hitting the tiny-est problems by thins time.

 

13. now comes sanding - preping and priming.

I don't go any finer than 400 before paint.
I use SEM high build primer -
usually black, but the guy at Finishmasters gave me a can of white a while ago so I used that.



14. For this piece I use SEM texture spray to give it an OEM look.
my first time with this product and I honestly didn't get the heavy look I was going for.



I might repaint next time I has the guns out.

15. I followed the SEM texture coat with Berina Black and a semi-flat clear...

16. because it was textured, there was no colorsanding!!!
I hate color sanding
I did use some steel wool to really flatten the paint out.

 

Thanks for the writeup. Did you shape the top edge (near the blue tape), while the last layer was still soft? (steps 9-10), or after it had finished setting up completely?

 

Looks great man. You can even make your own one of a kind splitter.

 

awesome work you did here!!