Painting tatty Series v rear lamp units

[don58van]

Hi all
I am sure that there must be many of you who have found yourself with tatty lamp units and have painted them to hide the pits and stipples on the casting.
I have a pair that have severe pitting (holes) and stippling (lumps). I would be happy to prepare and paint them rather than throwing them away.
I seek your assistance with advice on preparing them for painting. I have already filled the hundreds of little pits with JB Weld which seems to be working well.
I am having trouble though leveling down the stipples and scratching up the chrome to give a good key for the paint. I have tried I couple of types of abrasive paper (hand sanding) without much success. What worked for you?
Don

[myoldjalopy]

A large, flat file might do it?

[don58van]

Thank you for your reply myoldjalopy.
I tried filing. A coarse file did work fairly well but it was slow, hard work. The chrome seemed to do a great job of making the files blunt .
I next tried a powerfile (hand-held mini belt sander) with a coarse belt and that worked well and was much faster. The flange near where the lamp meets the body still had to be done mostly by hand, with coarse abrasive paper.
Now, more filling of holes and sanding before applying paint.
Don

[Steve Phillips]

What I always do in this position is get the chrome stripped before anything else. If you have a local chrome platers, take the bases along and they will strip them in minutes for a few pounds.

The cost of chroming is in the polishing and re plating so stripping is cheap and will save you a bucket load of work and grief.

Once stripped you will find most of the peaks will either disappear or at least be so much easier to sooth down. Then you can start the filling/ smoothing / painting process.

Google platers in your area to see if you have a local, and take some cash..... Things seem to get done faster than way.

[don58van]

Steve
Thanks for the suggestion.
Unfortunately, I am in a semi-rural location, far away from specialist processors such as electroplaters. There are very few around in Australia now because of health and safety issues. So the cost of shipping comes into play.
I have finished sanding them down now. I just have to do more detail prepping before painting.
I would advise anyone undertaking this job to seriously consider Steve's advice.
Don