Painting indicators?

[wasted]

This is a long shot, but... Since white Scala rear lights are painted white to match the car, how feasible do people think it would be to spray the front indicators with white paint? With sufficiently bright bulbs I reckon it should still allow them to be seen easily enough, and it would realy change the look of the front of the car.

I'm thinking the best way to do it would be to sand them back with some ultra fine paper, and then use white etch primer followed by a couple of coats of satin white. Would this still permit the light to show through d'you think?

[Tim_R]

I've seen the tail lights on mk 2 golfs painted body coloured back when they were a popular max power car. I think they were done using multiple layers of thinned down paint.

I'd imagine that this can be done for the indicators as well though how well it would work with an amber indicator as a base colour I couldn't say.

[wasted]

I think I might give it a go regardless... one option might be to apply a thin base coat to tone down the orange colour of the lenses, and then put opaque white horizontal stripes over the top (much like the stock rear clusters). I'll probably need to be fairly careful to make sure they're actually horizontal to the surrounding bodywork though!

[bluestreak56]

I've done my indies in black and in red, both times they shone through orange with standard bulbs no problem

I've also done my tails red and black again same result except on the black ones I did get over zealous and they failed the MOT for dimming the light output too much so be careful on your levels of spray!

[wasted]

Cool, cheers for that - out of interest, what sort of paint did you use? Just generic gloss spray?

[bluestreak56]

Cool, cheers for that - out of interest, what sort of paint did you use? Just generic gloss spray?

I used Savage Tail Light tinting Spray for the black that was good, the Red rears faded out after a year but Im not sure how many coats I put on.

Here are some pics:

Red Indies:



Smoked Indies:



Red Rears (before they faded):



Smoked Rears:

[wasted]

Thanks for that - your car looks damn good either way, frankly.

I doubt there's such a thing as white tinting spray though, so I think I'll have to just go with good old Plastikote.

[bluestreak56]

Thanks for that - your car looks damn good either way, frankly.

I doubt there's such a thing as white tinting spray though, so I think I'll have to just go with good old Plastikote.

Thanks, there are some other options though, theres sticker kits and the such like, I'll try and find some info for you.

[Birdy]

Been playing with a Fly Eyes Kit today, very easy to fit and can get most colours. May be easier and less hassle than spraying them

[lewp91]

whould white enamel ink work? like for models?

[wasted]

I had actually considered translucent white model paint - it looks as though it would do the job. I think I may try it, but if it doesn't work, I'm going to try pinstriping the front indies with pinstripe tape and using standard car paint on the rears (before scraping it off the ridges, old Scala style).