Front bumper has a lot of stone chip damage. Looking to repaint myself at home. Just need some guidance. Below is my plan. Please let me know if I’m overlooking anything or taking the wrong approach.

1. Sand stone chipped areas using 300-400 grit. Mostly hand sand. I have an electric random orbital sander but I’m worried that’s too aggressive.

2. Fill stone chipped areas with bondo and sand flush to surface


3. Wash bumper

4. Spray primer, paint, and clear coat. My plan was to use dupli spray paint in a can. I do have a compressor, so I can spray using a pneumatic spray gun, I’m just not sure where to get premixed paint.

Am I missing something? I can’t afford to have a body shop do the work and I’d like to make it look nicer.

How about a pic. or two of the extent of the damage to the bumper??? When you go to reply you will see Upload Attachment over at the left bottom.....

The very 1st step to any body work or painting is to scrub the area clean,
usually with a scuff pad and prep paste, I like to wash after that with
Dawn dish soap and rinse clean, dry with a clean towel, don't let water
dry on the area, most water sources leaves residues behind.

Nothing wrong using an electric sander, I do all the time,
but usually only for fine finish work. They're great for feather edging.
Not for wet sanding.

You'll never get the quality or durability from a spray can,
and spray cans won't give the finish a spray gun will,
especially on a large item like a bumper.

Stone chips should not be filled with filler materials,
they should be sanded and feather edged, primed and painted.
When filled with filler they usually telegraph through the finish later on
with temperature changes.
when dealing with a lot of chips it's usually easier to sand the entire area down
and start over.

Plastics that are bare need adhesion promoter before primer.
If you sand into raw plastic, finish sand it with real fine grit paper like 1200 to 1500
and it will keep the primer from fuzzing up when sprayed on, it's a typical problem
with sanded plastics.

JCCLARK wrote:The very 1st step to any body work or painting is to scrub the area clean,
usually with a scuff pad and prep paste, I like to wash after that with
Dawn dish soap and rinse clean, dry with a clean towel, don't let water
dry on the area, most water sources leaves residues behind.

Nothing wrong using an electric sander, I do all the time,
but usually only for fine finish work. They're great for feather edging.
Not for wet sanding.

You'll never get the quality or durability from a spray can,
and spray cans won't give the finish a spray gun will,
especially on a large item like a bumper.

Stone chips should not be filled with filler materials,
they should be sanded and feather edged, primed and painted.
When filled with filler they usually telegraph through the finish later on
with temperature changes.
when dealing with a lot of chips it's usually easier to sand the entire area down
and start over.

Plastics that are bare need adhesion promoter before primer.
If you sand into raw plastic, finish sand it with real fine grit paper like 1200 to 1500
and it will keep the primer from fuzzing up when sprayed on, it's a typical problem
with sanded plastics.

I appreciate the response. When you say sand down the entire area and start over are you referring to the specific section that has stone chips or are you saying the entire bumper should be sanded?

Yes, stripping only the stone chip area.

I do a lot of bumpers, it's like 80% of my jobs.
Most times, a stone chipped bumper will be much bigger than I
thought once I get it off the car and clean it real good
so I end up sanding a much bigger area than I planned.

I like to use epoxy primer on all my bumpers now, I've seen
a huge reduction in future chips on the ones with epoxy
compared to regular 2K primers.