clearing over BMF?

I have matte aluminum BMF. I was just wondering if I should clear over it or not. Should it be cleared over? Are there any negative effects of doing this? Thanks!

-Chris

How are you using it- trim work, large panels/full body?

If just trim work, you can clearcoat just fine but it doesn't need it. It will not change the appearence of the BMF.

For large panels or full body, I would certainly leave it uncoated.

Clear coating WILL change the look of the BMF. Semigloss clear over polished BMF will frost it, but clear over polished usually won't and I use Future over BMF to seal it all the time.

hth,
Bill

I will be using it for window trim on my Toyota Soarer.

I'd meant to ask this too, as I'm going to be trying it for the first time soon. What'll happen to normal "Chrome" BMF under gloss clearcoat? Will it just get a bit shinier, or will it fog?

Tigeraid, this is my thread garsh darnit!!!! hahaahaa Just bustin' ya! Yeah..Ive been wondering that to.

I've cleared over polished ally BMF with no issues. The side pannels on my 1:43 312PB were cleared with auto-laquer to seal in the decals and I had no problems. There are some photos in the motosport sections somewhere...

here is a picture of a cutlass that I did with BMF on all the trim.. and arround the windows.. this is a hour after I cleared it.. turned out really nice.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/scarface199/1970%20Cutlass%20SX/th_paintfinal4.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/scarface199/1970%20Cutlass%20SX/paintfinal4.jpg)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/scarface199/1970%20Cutlass%20SX/th_paintfinal3.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/scarface199/1970%20Cutlass%20SX/paintfinal3.jpg)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/scarface199/1970%20Cutlass%20SX/th_paintfinal2.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/scarface199/1970%20Cutlass%20SX/paintfinal2.jpg)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/scarface199/1970%20Cutlass%20SX/th_PaintFinal.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/scarface199/1970%20Cutlass%20SX/PaintFinal.jpg)

If you're applying clear gloss over windshield trim BMF (chrome or matte), you will see no difference whatsoever. I usually apply BMF trim before clearcoating. Perfectly safe, not even ts13 will attack it. Truthfully, without clearcoat gloss and matte BMF look nearly identical in thin strips like window trim.

BMF can be clearcoated, but I don't bother. I use the regular chrome, and polish it just like I polish paint. It looks very realistic that way.

Dull aluminum isn't going to look different clearcoated, other than it will look more like a regular silver. It won't look anything like real chrome. To me it's best to simulate dull aluminum and not be clearcoated. If you want the dull aluminum to look like polished, you can polish it. The dull look is a surface treatment to the foil and it should polish off.

Excellent, I can't wait to try this on the next project.... And fwiw Zoom I find the main reason I want to do it is to help seal the BMF to the body, as it seems every car I do, I end up messing up a little bit of the window trim at SOME point during handling the body. :(

I clear over my BMF all the time now. Like tigeraid said.....it helps seal it in. incase it is being handled you dont have to worryabout a piece of it flaking off. Just my preference.