FrankenScion

[Sam Vs. Dave]

I drive a 2006 Scion xB which I bought new. With no garage and constant sunshine the paint has been shot for a few years, so I thought what would be the harm in repainting the hood with some Van Halen stripes!? I've been inspired by some of your guitar painting projects, so I YouTubed a couple of Frankenstrat paint videos along with a couple of how-to-paint-your-car-with-rattle-can videos and decided to give it a shot. The hood is very small, so I figured it wouldn't be too problematic.

My car is darkish blue, so I thought I'd go with red and white stripes on a black background. Red with black and white stripes seemed too extreme... It did not come out perfect, but it's pretty cool and I'm happy with it. The biggest issue was when it rained for 10 seconds while painting the final black coat. It gave the black coat a bit of a texture I wasn't expecting and didn't know what to do with, but I did some very light wet sanding and pressed on. The clear coat isn't awesome either, but I don't want to go back and wet sand it or anything for fear of scratching up the whole thing. Regardless of all the imperfections, it still looks better than the rest of car!

Here's where we started after a decent wet sanding and cleaning:



I then primed it with a single can of Rustoleum white automotive primer. I used the whole can and barely covered the whole hood, which was a surprise.



I used Rustoleum paints simply because they were half the price of the Duplicolor and I wasn't really sure what I was doing.

[Sam Vs. Dave]

Since the primer was white, I went for a white coat of paint first. The paint seemed to last a lot longer than the primer and I got two full coats from can of Rustoleum white automotive paint. I guess I forgot to take a picture of just the white, but it looked pretty good!

After that dried for a day I taped it up with some blue painters tape.



With the white taped up I painted a couple of coats of red where I thought the red stripes should go. I'm not sure why I didn't just paint the whole hood red, but I think I was afraid of the paint bleeding under the tape and/or running out of paint. The red stripes worked out great in the end and I still had maybe 1/3 of the can left over.



I then pulled off the tape to see the white stripes. I was afraid of taking the tape off too early or too late, but I waited 25 minutes and it came off perfectly. Thanks for your advice on that last week!



I should mention I removed the hood and painted it out in our back "yard" which is a tiny area behind the townhouse I live in. It was completely outdoors and unsheltered which made for a fun adventure with the unpredictable winds and showers we get over here. But so far, so good!

[Sam Vs. Dave]

After the red dried for a day I retaped over the white stripes and added new tape over the red stripes. It was hard to decide how many was too much and how much was too little, but I went for it. I wanted it to be obvious but not too stripe-y.



Then came the black paint and the rain! Things were going just fine, but then some rain came down (while being perfectly sunny out - not uncommon around here) and my black paint had small bubbles in it. I thought it looked kind of cool but was worried the bubbles would eventually break and screw everything up over time, so I lightly rubbed them down with a light wet sanding which sort of worked and mostly didn't. I then added another coat or two of black until the can was empty. It was very black and very "textured" but I think it will be ok...



I cleverly numbered the tape so I knew which order to untape the stripes after about 25 minutes.



And it looked like this!



I couldn't decide if I wanted to clear coat it or not with some Rustoleum auto glossy clear coat, so I let it dry for a few days while we went to the Big Island. I eventually decided to clear coat it so it would hopefully avoid fading and cracking/chipping etc. The clear coat didn't look as glossy as I hoped and makes it look a little "dull" depending on the direction of the sun, but I figured I better leave it alone instead of messing with it and ruining the whole thing. So, it's done and I really like it!




I think the YouTube car painting guys would have a heart attack if they saw this due to the texture and obvious spray paint markings, but for a 1st time job on a 16 year old car with faded paint everywhere, it looks pretty great!

My wife and kids have mixed feelings...

[Al Van Bundy]

Awesome.

I just bought a beater 2007 Ford F150 & I'm seriously thinking about doing this on the tailgate.

[Sam Vs. Dave]

Awesome.

I just bought a beater 2007 Ford F150 & I'm seriously thinking about doing this on the tailgate.

Do it! It's a fun little project with no real downside if it goes south. I wanted to do the same thing to the hatchback door on my car, but taking it off seems too complicated. I might just make some stripes with duct tape, haha...

[Daisy Hill]

This made me laugh and I needed a laugh. I just picture you carefully preparing your car for this transformation and ruminating about the potential options. "My wife and kids have mixed feelings" LOL I bet they do. I love it.

[Al Van Bundy]

Aaaaand I just realized this is in the wrong thread LOL.
Can someone move this to the talk about anything thread please