charlestek

Hi Folks. While researching bumper repainting after backing my bumper into a Ford truck bumper (Ford was unhurt!) in a parking lot, I came upon what appears to be the motherlode of highest technology to actually properly repair and refinish any kind of bumper.

The company is Urethane Supply Company. Home page is: http://www.urethanesupply.com/index.htm. Their manual of repair is here in html (standard web page format):
http://www.urethanesupply.com/TheBook.htm or in Acrobat format (better): http://www.urethanesupply.com/pdf/thebook.pdf . They make a flexible or rigid patch compounds, reinforced plastic welding rods and repair materials and all sorts of painting products, whose use depends on the type of plasic in the bumper. The chart of bumper plastics by car makes is here: http://www.urethanesupply.com/BumperIDStart.htm. Their products are listed here: http://www.urethanesupply.com/prodsearch.htm under "Product Information". The max bumpers are polypropelene (pp) . There are different techniques and products to repair cracks and fill spaces. The flex filler is used for pp plastics: http://www.urethanesupply.com/pdf/info2000.pdf.
See the "newsletter" link for interesting topics, like how to repair plastic headlight housings and threaded plastic headlight housing tabs:
http://www.urethanesupply.com/newsltr/pp34.pdf

The "airless plastic welder" they advertise looks like a large variable heating soldering iron. I suspect one could buy a large 80 watt soldering iron for much less $ (at your local electronics parts supply store) with the appropriate tip and accomplish the same thing???

Since I'm not a body repair person, I have never personally tried these products, so anyone out there with knowledge, please reply!

Anyway, I just had my bumper replaced 3 months ago when a woman hit me, and this recent damage showed just the paint splintering and shattering off like the chocolate coating of an ice cream bar. I had this done at one of the most reputable body shops in Cambridge Mass. ( Actually next to the garage where the Click and Clack Car Talk guys work --> recommended by them). It looks like they didn't prep the new bumper properly or add flex compound to the paint. I'm going back Monday and find out why this happened.