Nice work and outcome!

I did my front and rear bumper too (GPW)... actually, I "spot blended" them, since I was only repairing small damages (front bumper's entire lip area was curb rashed, and rear bumper had a garage-door-hinge rash).

In hindsight, I shoulda just painted the entire bumpers; as the "spot blends" become bigger & bigger at every stage (plastic filler repair > primer > primer > paint > clearcoat)... ie, basically was spraying the entire bumper with clear during last step clear.

It turned out professional looking... mainly due to that amazing 2k SprayMax clear... flows super nice, very juicy and wet look, as if it came from a spray-gun

After it cured a week or two later, I wet-sanded, compound and polish the clear. Removed any orange peel and looks super nice.

 

I have done smaller parts using paint from AutomotiveTouchUpPaint a couple of times, using the 2k clear from them and yep, it works great.

 

Asking the real questions. Love my Weber Kettle.

That paint looks great and matches well! Very hard to tell.

I could see track goers spraying their whole car like this and be more than happy.

 

Thanks

Like @Jah2000 said...the secret sauce is the Spraymax 2K clearcoat, I think.

The beauty of this paint job is that I'm so carefree with it. It stays full of track grime and brake dust for weeks/months. I lean against it sometimes...I've eaten chicken wings (on a paper plate) off of it...and every time I wash it, its gleaming.

100% there are swirl marks from mistreatment, but it just always looks above standard for whatever reason.

I also don't clean the track rubber off the car. It's full with smeared rubber. Looks tough asf.

It's surprisingly chip resistant too.

I drove this car on the street a bunch last year. I even went to a couple parking lot meets with it. People say "the paint looks good", and that's BEFORE I tell them its spray painted. The guy who professionally painted my Berlina AP1 even said it looked good haha.

The hood is the only exception. And that's just because I didn't completely sand off the dead and popping OE clearcoat. So it looks gritty. I have a spare hood I'll likely paint next year.

Again, I think the Spraymax stuff is key. I think its a european-made clearcoat? So maybe its just a harder clear than Japanese clearcoat and that's why its so resilient? Someone who knows can correct me if I'm wrong.

Another big part in the car just looking fine no matter what is because its generally kinda rough around the edges Lol

 

The car came out great. Huge improvement over the mismatched panels. I'd much rather have a 90% car that gets driven and enjoyed than a 100% car that just sits inside looking pretty.

 

Guys will see this and just say "HELL YEAH"


Hell yeah.

 

Always hard to tell with pictures on the interwebs regarding paint but that looks good to me! Nice work man! I've never tried rattle canning large pieces like body panels but I bet if done carefully and prepped well like you did it should be pretty darn good! I think a good clear makes all the difference. Rattle canning gets a bad rap because people do shiitty prep jobs and don't use a nice clear coat at the end.

 

I now want to go throw a t bone on my Weber Kettle

 

I remember in my younger/ricer days in the 90s, before 2k clearcoat in a can existed (working on mine and several other various EF, EG, DC, MR2, S13, etc., etc.), I often painted small items or bumpers, fenders, hatches, panels; but with Pep Boys paint and clearcoat cans.

And, it NEVER looked good! Never looked even remotely close to professional, flat and smooth.
It was always super orange-peel'y and textured (almost like a glossy wrinkle-coat, lol). It was also not durable and often chipped, flaked and/or faded over time. This was totally due to the cheap clearcoat being only 1k (1 part, no proper hardener).

2k really changed the game for DiY. Truly looks professional; if not even better than many of the mobile-quick-paint-repair "pros" like you'd find on Yelp.
(I've seen some work [like from neighbors] from those mobile-quick-repair-pros... and often, their work looks like the cheapy PepBoys/Autozone/Oreillys clearcoat with a ton of texture/orange-peel, lol... maybe they're too cheap to get 2k clear)

 

I took your word on the rustolem color and went ahead and painted my voltex bumper lol, so far looks pretty good got a little bit of trash in the paint but going to sand it down and polish it up but here's a picture. Still need to install it and see how close it matches my paint.