painting question

Well have my rear bumper off and will be spraying that, also I want to spray/paint my towing eye and rear towbar bracket.

Now would I be better of doing the towing eye/bracket with something like hammerite or just spray everything?

opinions....

by towing eye do you mean the ball? if so does it get used? if you tow things then dont bother painting the ball, it'll only rub off and annoy you.

personally i would just hammerite the metal bracket and ball, its quicker easier and looks about the same. if your spraying them then to do it properly you will need to sand them smooth, key them in, prime them (preferably using etch primer so it gets a good bond) then spray them. the same applies to your bumper of course but a bumper is slightly more prominent and 'should' look nicer than a towing ball/bracket.

towing eye I mean at the front the ring thing, I would not paint the tow bar just the bracket.

Think I will paint hammerite on the bracket & primer/ spray the bumpers...

the front ring is hardly visible so personally i'd just hammerite it. the bumpers i'd deffo spray, take the time to prime and smooth them properly and they can look as good as the factory intended.

was going to spray the bumpers no matter what!

pritty sure I will get a good finish on the bracket with hammerite and a decent brush, will proberly last longer as well....hopefully

okay, have preped my rear bumper last nite sanded it right back how ever there are a few areas of 'pitting' to get this perfect with the spraying method would take a while ie, rust cure, primer, under coat, filler , top coat & lacquer.

Or I could use hammerite (maybe hammerite smooth) this would cover the majority of the pitted areas & would be a lot quicker to do. Will I get get a fairly good finish? will it last long ie not chip off?

aerosol cans of hammerite or brush on? if its brush on then it wont look too great - the paint is so thick you get lovely brush lines that just wont go away. if its spray on then you should get a decent finish but it'll never really 'shine' but on bumpers thats no bad thing.

as for will it stay on - if you've still got rust or pits under the paint then it will continue to rust and the paint will come off, usually in patches. hammerite is usually good at bonding to metals, unless its rubbed/knocked on a regular basis. i painted the outdrive of my boat with hammerite and its mostly still on there after 4 months of being permanently under salt water but its never really touched by anything, i also painted my anchor but this has mostly chipped off or rubbed away even tho its hardly used.

you can get stuff called 'pre-kote' for use with hammerite type products, its basically like a hard bonding agent. if your worried about peeling/flaking then i'd be tempted to use a coat of this 1st.

Cheers for your input Markdisco!

Well sanded the bumper back got rid of the rust. Really wished a took a before pic so you guy's could see how bad it was, nearly all rusted. Sprayed it up with hammerite smooth black (spray paint) Pleased with the results considering how bad it was to start with. I used auto glym stuff on the corners to bring them back to life!

Now I have a fairly tidy arse! Just replaced the exhaust as well the other day...

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