Black Painted Badging

[Va6li]

Anyone black painted their MS3, Axela badge and have pictures of it?

I'm debating on going stealth with the badging on my MS3 or leaving it silver.

I did search the forum but most of them have pictures that the host service has taken off.

 

[SharkDiver]

I did mine.you can kinda see them on my videos..Have a look.

http://youtube.com/profile?user=sharkdiverjohn

 

[Va6li]

Very nice car.
Def what I was looking for. How was the process to black out the Mazda logo?

Anyone did the same as SharkDiver but to the badges?

 

[assman]

Nice pics. I like how you even blacked out your license plate too, too bad i was thinking of stalking you.

 

[AllLostThings]

I was thinking of blacking out the Mazda emblems on the front and rear also. My guess would be, rather than remove them and have to apply ne wtape, just boarder them off with tape, sand them down a little bit and paint them with a brush on touch up paint.

nice job SharkDiver!

 

[SharkDiver]

Thanks guys..

What I did was bought some 2 way 3M tape and removed the emblems front and back.I sanded them then sprayed 3 coats of some gloss black auto paint.I then let it dry over night and then applied 3 coats of clear coat.Then I put some of the tape I bought on the emblems and put them back on.You can do the same thing to the Mazda emblems but they are going to be harder to sand unless you have a dremel.
And assman they told me about you already,Thats why I blacked out my plates......

 

[assman]

Seriously though, it looks awesome. I like the gas cap to.

 

[andrew.savage]

I did mine about 6 months ago. I took the 2.3 badges off as well as the "3" symbol and just left the "mazda" on the hatch. I will get picks. Make sure you use a clear on the front one at least because of rock chips and such.

 

[icspots]

So far the best ones I've seen were a member on mazda 3 forums. He actually put the badges in a bleach bath (and then something else after that) which stripped all of the plated metal off of the plastic. Then he sanded/primed/painted/cleared. They look fantastic. The whole process took about a week to get everything off of the plastic, but the best results come with the best preparation.

Actually I went and found his post over there. The rest of the pics are from the same thread using the same process. I personally like the color matched ones.

[quote author=rdaggett link=topic=61104.msg1041779#msg1041779 date=1162270575]
Ok I tried the painting the emblems black ... the first time I sanded and roughed up the chrome like finish.... Looked good for a day came home saw a little nick, ran my finger across it to see the damage and the paint came off quiet easy .... damn :?

I did a lot of web searches and found out that Mazda and most car manufactures use a 2 step electro plating base copper and the chrome like finish is electro plated aluminum. After finding this info out I did a search for chemicals that would strip the 2 different platings but not melt the abs plastic. After many hours and emailing many different chrome refinishers and chemical manufactures a search found that caustic soda will strip the plating .... hmmmm caustic sodas ..... will Pepsi work? OK OK it wasn't funny ..... most of the chemicals were not easy to get my hands on so I email 1 more place and they stated to try BLEACH. after reading the label it states that it will promote corrosion. I tries it and this is my results ........

We all know what the chrome emblems look like ... so here it goes.

this is what bleach will do to the finish .... it takes a long time (the 3 took 2.5 days). you will notice that the chrome turns black .... either use your fingers or an old brush to rub it away and soak in bleach again until you can not get any more copper/chrome off.

If you want to get all the black off soak the emblem in a 50/50 mix of ammonia/hydrogen peroxide ***WARNING ****DO NOT MIX BLEACH AND AMMONIA ... THE CHEMICAL REACTION WILL PRODUCE A GAS THAT WILL BURN YOUR LUNGS AND CAN POSSIBLY CAUSE DEATH***WARNING*** THIS MEANS WASH THE PARTS VERY GOOD, THEN 1 MORE TIME TO MAKE SURE. ***Disclaimer************************* and myself are not held responsible for the unsafe mixing and or handling of any of these chemicals. This write up is from information I used in my personal experience. Use at your own risk. I am in no was telling you to mix these. This is only a suggestion. ***Disclaimer***

The small amounts of copper left you can take an exacto knife #11 and slowly scrap it off and then sand the ABS in prep for paint.

After Bleach bath you can see how much chrome is gone and see the remaining copper

Here is the front emblem after bleach bath ... aprox 4 days / couple hour ammonia/peroxide bath and lightly scraping off remaining copper and sanded

And here is the finished product .... used black Krylon Fusion spray paint. 1 light\baked flash (in oven, i think fiance was going to kill me) 2nd light\baked, 3rd wet baked. Baking make sure it is an even finish

Hope you all like and hope it helps someone as I couldnt find a DIY write up on this ....it does take a while just remember the goal ..... sweet looking and durable emblems.

Robert

The rears uninstalled.

I will remote to my laptop later today when my fiance wakes up and I can get her to log on to my laptop.

Here is the front ... look close you can see the reflection of the trees on the upper left .... looks hazy but it isnt the sun came out right when I took this one....

thanks for looking
love you all




Strato on Strato. I used factory colored paint from paintscratch.com

 

[SharkDiver]

Im pretty sure you can use easy off oven cleaner to strip the plastic chrome stuff off.People use it on there RC car wheels to get the chrome stuff off so they can paint them.I just sanded and painted because I forgot about using that stuff at the time.

 

[Wuz Ranger]

Nice write ups guys!

 

[controlo]

thats a cool write up. i think its a little excessive for the M's. the mazda/mazdaspeed emblems are much harder to sand than the M's and 3's, so that might be a good idea for those. i used duplicolor semi-gloss black on my M's and they came out perfect. 5 months, no chipping...

 

[SuperStretch18]

That is a great write up! If you are going to do it, might as well do it right! Thanks for sharing!