What's the best way to remove chrome trim and badging ?

[Greg Myers]

Wanna clean up the body for paint, remove all those factory badges and trim, what works for you ?

Guess this is a two part question as removing is one thing and prep would be another.

Oh yeah , ghosting is what we're trying to avoid.

First , what do YOU use to remove the badging,

just cut it off with a #11,

scrape it off,

sand them off,

or, combination there of?

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

I always use files to take material off down to the level of the surface.

You need something RIGID that won't just ride over the high-spots while taking material off AROUND the emblem or whatever...like unsupported sandpaper will. Otherwise, you'll get a wavy panel, often with unnecessarily deep and hard-to-kill sanding scratches around the emblem site.

You will almost always find that the area will "ghost", as the plastic under the emblem is just a little softer than the hard skin that was over the emblem itself.

Sanding the area with 400 wet gets it all blended together, then sanding it with 800 gets it ready for primer.

The only thing I've found that kills ghosting is to repeatedly prime, let dry, sand again, prime again, and repeat as necessary.

And if you don't want to obliterate fine details in the neighborhood, you need to be using an airbrush with a narrow pattern to do your primer work.

I removed the hood peak and emblem from this. It ghosted pretty badly. Now it's fixed, as described above.

 

[MrObsessive]

Greg, check out a mini tutorial I did on this sort of thing years ago........

Scroll down a little bit to see where this applies..........

[Greg Myers]

First two responders top of the line. thank you both.

[Tommy124]

On 6.9.2009 at 8:06 PM, MrObsessive said:

By letting the liquid glue thoroughly dry and then re-sanding the area, you're now "erasing" the memory of what was molded there. Thus when you paint, since paint is not a hot a solvent as glue, the memory shouldn't come back.

Fully agree with you there Bill! And may I add that for filling panel lines you can use the same method, but depending on the depth of the line, it may be recommended to use styrene melted in glue. The way I did here with the sunroof panel lines on the Porsche. 

 

[Casey]

Your question was asked and answered a few months ago:

 

[Greg Myers]

Yes, that was a question about "Ghost trim" . 

This is about removing the Trim itself.

Thank you for being ever so vigilant. 

[my80malibu]

Greg after sanding apply liquid cement  to the area, it will swell the plastic some, let dry completely.  Then touch up sand, and apply a little filler primer.