Front badge "mod"

Felt bored one day so drawing inspiration from another Mk3, I decided to "mod" my front badge before I get a badgeless front grille. Basically I just resprayed a part of it black with some left over spray paint. It ended up being a more difficult job than expected (I mean c'mon, it's just spraying a small area black!) but it all came out good in the end.

Materials used:

• Masking/painter's tape
• Sandpaper (100/250/600/1000 grit)
• Spray paint
• Degreaser and acetone (dependent on your "skill" as a spray painter)
  
• Cotton buds (dependent on your "skill" as a spray painter)
• Your fingernails
  
• Patience

Procedure:

1. Remove front grille badge. It is easily popped off; a flathead is absolutely not necessary.
   
2. Mask only the polished/chromed parts of the VW insignia. Leave the dull plastic on the insides and surrounding circle of the insignia.
3. OK, so I wanted to do this properly. Using sandpaper (starting with the most coarse), sand the surrounding circle of the insignia until scratches look uniform all around. Continue with the higher grit sandpapers until you get a very smooth texture.
4. Spray away. Try and get all the spots on the insides.
   Being the unprofessional spray painter that I am, I tried my best to get all the insides blacked out. That meant a lot of overspray and thick coats on the circular surrounding of the insignia. It looked ugly as shit. I ended up resanding the insignia until all the paint was off, then "properly" respray that part black.
5. Let it dry before unpeeling the masking off.
6. Once dry, peel masking. I don't know what happened with mine, but the adhesive on the tape stuck on to the VW insignia, leaving sticky, visibly yellow remnants. Being the adhesive, I carefully used some cotton buds tipped with degreaser to get rid of it. Many tries later, it came out looking clean again, and even made the insignia more shiny than before.
7. With paint overspray (due to poor masking), use cotton buds tipped with acetone to stripped the paint out. Use liberally until overspray is gone. Also, on the edges of the insignia, you will see a thin indent. Using your finger nails, "cut" along this line to remove any "hidden" overspray. This definitely makes the badge look more "factory-like".
8. Reattach back on to the grille.
9. Marvel. :)

So there you have it. Here are the after pics:


Dare to be different.