JaxFSport

iTrader: (1)

I've succumb to starting a thread on here looking for anyone who maybe able to help me. All I want are OEM "grade" gloss black F Sport badges (2 fender and 1 trunk), BUT apparently that is just what to much to as of the aftermarket community. I've had two separate orders from Ebay delivered with terrible off white in the background of the badge. Basically the background views as a cream color against my white car so it looks terrible. Does anyone have any leads of quality black F Sport badges or a way to have the OEM badges redone? I've tried to vinyl wrap and that was a disaster trying to cut out the white background. The only viable option I've seen is buying an enamel paint pen and painting the white on aftermarket badges a brighter white. Hard to see here, but trust me they don't come close to matching the car.

doodlebug

I think your best bet is to paint the white with a paint pen. I did this over 4 years ago on mine (except I painted the white part black) and it has held up exceptionally well.
I painted mine before I installed them on the car and it was easier than I thought it would be.

EvilJoker

Agreed. Find a hobby paint. Acrylic enamel should work fine. Use a super fine tip brush and you may want to thin the paint a little. Get paint on the tip of the brush and just "blot" the area and let it fill itself in. Thin coats or the paint will crack when it dries.

rcJten

I used plasti-dip to fill in my f-sport fender badges with black. Sprayed the entire emblem, wiped off the upper-flat surfaces with a paper towel while still wet. Once dry, it's easy to wipe away any remaining material off the upper-surface with your finger tip. The badges have held up for the last few years, no issues.

JaxFSport

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the tips guys! So here are the results which I would say are about 8.5/10. Yea they don't look like a machine made them, but all in all I'll take the imperfections over the ugly original cream colored background all day. They look pretty good from any normal viewing distance, but up close is a tad bit rough. I really just wanted to get them on the car, but will probably do some small touch-up over time.

doodlebug

Looks great. Give it a couple of months......you won't even notice that it's not perfect. And, nobody else will either. Good job!!

E46CT

I don't get it. Aren't the stock ones already white? The reason why the selection and quality is terrible is pretty self-evident. There's nothing like the factory equipment when it comes to this stuff. Manufacturers have economies scale and world class suppliers that make it viable to create such things. Creating a one off and having it be high quality just isn't going to happen with the aftermarket.

Personally I like the stock F Sport badges. Not only are they the highest quality, the colors chosen are highly specific as to the designers and is consistent with the brand's identity and philosophy. Anything else, any modification to the color sort of just ruins it. Aside from the fact that it's obvious it's been mucked with.

The ones you show in your post, those are aftermarket?

What does stock look like? Did you try buying stock?

JaxFSport

iTrader: (1)

I think you're maybe missing my point with whole quality and color change here. What I meant by OEM quality was basically the finish of the emblem and coloring. This manufacture of my aftermarket emblem didn't even try and I haven't found any others. There are a ton of other car brands that have a pretty decent selection of aftermarket emblems available. Anyway, to answer a couple of questions - yes the OEM 'F Sport' emblems do have a white background color, however they have the dark chrome face. I wanted to change the face to a nice gloss black to go in line with the rest of appearance of the car. I understand that designers may have chosen the dark chrome specifically to appeal to an OEM look, but I didn't know wanting to change in another direction would be considered to blasphomus in your opinion. What do think of those who powder coat the OEM wheels black? Chrome deletes? Not to mention different wheels all together must be insanity.

E46CT

So you like the stock badges as they are except you want the gun metal gray part to be gloss black. Can't you just mask off the letters/voids (yes it'll be tough work), sand the surface (gray), and gloss black it out using black paint and 2k clear??

JaxFSport

iTrader: (1)

Thought about doing it that way until I found these online. I was excited to see they made what I wanted and the pictured didn't hint that the white was actually off-white so I got screwed. Also the chances of me masking off these tiny voids really well seemed slim compared with filling in the new ones with paint just to be honest.

E46CT

I think the masking part will yield a better result then trying to paint dots into the voids as it will look clumpy. It's much easier to paint, sand, buff a larger flatter area. I've done this before on a camera. Just cut tiny pieces of masking tape and take your time. Could even get creative and just smear some playdoh or some other easily removable substance--plastidip even and take a sanding block with fine sand paper and just scuff the top raised portion. paint, sand, buff, let dry, then pick out the plastidip.