I wanted to share a cool trick I stumbled on while replacing a peeling chrome door pull handle. I was painting the charcoal plastic part the same as my dash trim and played around with painting the pulls themselves.

What i did was find a way to create a brushed aluminum effect without paint on these chrome plated plastic parts! I think this should work on other chromed plastic parts like the speedo rings and HVAC/Radio controls. When I try that on those I'll update the post.

Basically I used a 3m body paint prep scuff pad and ran it back and forth in the same direction to get the effect I wanted. I used just a little pressure, being careful to move the pad in the same direction only. Then I sprayed a couple light coats of clear on it because I found that otherwise it will show fingerprints just like stainless steel!

Before, this the now junk handle I had where the chrome was peeling off.


The scuff pad


First few passes with the scuff pad..


After more passes...


And the final product with some cleatcoat painted on. Don`t forget to do all the sides of the pull that you can see once installed. Make sure to orient the direction of the scuffs so they make sense when looking at all the sides together.

 

me likey

 

Sub'd in case mine peel again and it's not under warranty.