How to paint Gel Coated Hood Scoop?

I am getting ready to paint the COMET GT scoop for my car. It is a gel coated repop. What is the proper way to prep gel coat? This stuff is pretty slick. Should I sand it down? What grit paper? Do I need to prime it or does the gel coat act as the primer?

THanks ..

 

i would wet sand with 400 paper, primer it, dry sand with 600 paper and paint.

 

I would sand it with 180, then prime it, 3 coats of a good epoxy primer. Once cured I would sand that with 400 again. If you want to see the grain of the fiberglass later you can stop there. If you dont like the grain of the fiberglass I would apply 3 coats of a good primer/surfacer. Let the primer/surfacer cure for about 3 days if you can, then I would guide coat it, then sand it with 600 grit. If happy, then I would seal and topcoat.
Dan
ps reason for 180 grit on the gel coat is you want to get some tooth in there. Let the primer have something to hang onto if you will. Personally, I think if you used anything finer, you would lose paint easily. Just my experience here, I am sure you will get lots of good advice that you will use here.

 

Thanks ... I figured I'd have to rough it up quite a bit since that stuff would be like painting on glass ...

 

Freshly spray bombed ... now it looks nice than the rest of the car!

 

dan,

paint the scoop and hood center "hot rod black" ...frank...

 

Too late ... just painted it to match the body ... I was thinking about striping the hood like a Comet GT ... not sure yet ... I like XRS's car with no stripes ... Was also contemplating putting a 73/75 Grabber hood stripe on .. custom ordered without "GRABBER" in it ..

 

Hey Dan, Looks real good. BTW, got a link to where I can get a spray bomb?

 

Not Grandma's Maverick any more ... Still have to bolt it down to follow the hood curves. Do a search on Urethane paint to find the vendor I used ....

Now just need to finish up my small bumper conversion, get the Magnum 500's mounted and install the rear spoiler and sport mirrors and swap in the black Grabber grill ..

 

That will look sweet with the small bumpers.. Very nice!
-Corbin

 

Looks great man!! Preston

 

Dan, you probably know this, but be careful tightening down that scoop to the hood. You can distort both will very little torque. Also, I usually run a bead of silicone between the two when doing something like this. Looks nice, I like the body color look of it.
Dan