Painting fog light surrounds/grille

[Beltaine]

I have to pull the bumper down to replace busted foglights, and thought that while I was at it, I would respray the plastic mesh, horizontal bar, and foglight surrounds a matte black.

From this:


To this:


My biggest worry is since it's on the front of the car, I don't want rockchips and whatnot knocking the black paint away and making red spots.

Should I sand the parts to be painted down to bare material, or try to use several coats to prevent red spots? Or both? Is there a matte clear I could use to toughen it up?

Should I just take the parts to a body shop and have them do it? I just don't want it to cost a big ton of cash for just a little piece.

[noR]

There WILL BE alot of rock chips, impact crators.

So ... yes, probably best to sand it down to bare material....


and then leave it.

It's black plastic. ;p

I dunno how much work would be involved, but that'd "work best" and be the least amount of maintenance.

That said, a can of flat-black spray paint and a few q-tips are great for touch-ups. Go look at my car, you'll see I've done my grille, similar but differently.

One thing I'd point out is now the little painted trim along the bottom... looks... ineffective. Too thin, to small. I dunno something's just not balanced.

My solution is to add another add-on piece later. To 'thicken up' that lower lip a bit.

[SMG]

Mask it WELL. Rough up with sandpaper. Get some rubberized bedliner and spray it onto a ice cream lid or a piece of plastic and then dab it on slowly with a foam brush overlapping as you go. It works awesome and it's very tough. I had to re-do mine after 2 years but it wasn't chipping any more than the rest of the paint.