powder coating your bumpers and grill?
What color could you powder coat a bumper to make look the closest to chrome is there one?
I realize I am no expert but I have browsed around powderbuythepound.com. I found this and it looks pretty good. I have talked to a few people and done some research. I have found that it will never look like bright chrome.
http://www.powderbuythepound.com/PATENTED_ULTIMATE_CHROME.html
There are a few manufacturers who make a chrome-looking powder -- I've tried most of them, including
Patented Ultimate Chrome by PBTP -- but IMO none of them look like "real" chrome. They're nice and shiny and look all right ... but they don't have that mirror-like quality you get with real chrome.
I recommend over and over that it's all right on its own, but you wouldn't want it visually close to real chrome on your car -- you can tell at a glance that it's not the same stuff. For example, you would not want to use chrome powder coating on your bumperettes if you've got a real chrome bumper. This question comes up so often in fact that I've got my "Standard Chick Answer": You can see yourself in it but you couldn't tell if you've got a blackhead or not. :D
This is the best possible example I can give you guys, and this actually classifies as work product. I don't often take "during" pictures when I'm working something up but it's a good illustration.
This is a beat up, scratched up 1976 Chevy Vega hood emblem on arrival. It's supposed to be red, white, blue and black ... and the owner wanted the red and blue areas at the top to be translucent "candy" colors.
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The
Polar White and
Ink Black are done in the next photo. Keep in mind these pictures were taken about 2 inches away so there's NO forgiveness.
Since candy powders need a good shiny base to look their best and that emblem was so dang scratched up to start with, I used
Super Chrome on the top areas instead of the bare factory chrome. Look closely and you can see the difference ........
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See what I mean??? It looks
all right ... but there's no way it's going to fool anybody that it's real chrome.
Here's how the little matchbook-sized beastie turned out.
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Don't worry! I ran it across the buffer a few times before he got it back. It's the showpiece of his hood now. :D