Carbon fiber goodness

 

Who buys a nicely finished piece of carbon fiber and decides that painting it would be a good idea? Well.... that would be me. My mind works this way for some reason.  While I’m still mixed on what I want to do for a front lip, I figured that this carbon fiber Mugen replica would be a good start. I eventually want to cut this one up and re-mold it alittle (working on photoshop renders) but that may have to wait until a later date. So why buy something if you dont really want it? Becuase either way its a good start for what I have invisioned for this car. Plus it was such a good deal, I couldnt pass it up.

Anyways on to the fun stuff, ruining a perfectly fine carbon fiber lip.  I’ve never been a big fan of black parts on a white car, so when I purchased this, the plan was never to run it in the bare carbon fiber finish. I either wanted to paint it all white or just maybe mask off a section and leave some of the carbon fiber showing. Knowing that once it was painted there really was no turning back, I decided that temporarily painting it with some Plasti-dip would be a good idea. At least this way I could paint it, get it mounted, and get a good look at it.

After laying out the final design with some blue masking tape, I went to town with the Plasti-dip. There is something about new and shiny carbon fiber that makes it hard to paint over… lol but I still managed to do it.

First I started with a few light coats to let the paint adhere, then a little bit more layer-by-layer after that. And once the Plasti-dip was fully covering the lip I threw on a few more coats of gloss white to help it match the OEM paint a little better. At least now I can get a better look at the overall paint design and still be able to remove it if I don’t like.

I think this idea works, at least for now. I was able to get the best of both worlds with this design in my opinion. This lip as it sits satisfies my needs right now, until I can think of something cooler to do it. Now to decide on whether or not matching carbon fiber side will help round the look out. Only time will tell.