Niteshaded LED Taillights (High Gloss Shine) (56K No)

Tinted my taillights with niteshades and took pictures of the process. I originally did my mustang tails with Niteshades and hated the end result as they had tons of orange peel and were very flat black vs glossy. This time I made sure to do them right and take my time. Spent 2 days but they came out great

Here is the before and after pictures:




Here is what I used:

1 can Niteshades, 1 can Duplicolor Acrylic Enamel HIGH GLOSS clear coat, 3M Rubbing Comound, 3M 600, 1000, 2000 grit wet dry sandpaper, Meguiars Plast X, Meguiars Deep Crystal Polish

Start out by masking off areas you dont want tinted. I decided to mask off the backup lights as I want them to produce more light when backing up. I used masking tape and electrical tape as the masking tape tends to come off when wetsanding. Next mix dish soap and water and use the 600 grit sandpaper and wet sand the surface.
Tails looked like this after sanding:



Wiped off with terry towel and applied 1 coat of niteshades:


Allowed 30 min to dry and then wetsanded with 1000 grit. Go very slowly when sanding and let the paper do the work. Then applied 2nd coat:


Wetsand 1000 grit and applied 3rd coat:


At this point I removed the tape very carefully after letting them dry for 30 min. I wanted to tint the backup light area but not that dark. I applied 1 final coat to entire lens after wetsanding the painted and non painted areas:

(sanded)

(final niteshades coat (#4))


Now onto the clear coat. Applied 2 thick coats, as much as possible without letting it run. Let it dry for 30 minutes between coats and then wetsanded with 1000 grit after the first coat. I let the 2nd coat dry overnight with NO sanding (approx. 12 hours)



And dry in the morning:



Then wetsanded clear coat with 1000 grit until no more orange peel:


Buffing/Polishing:
I used an orbital buffer to save time and make it a LOT easier. I applied 4 coats of 3M Rubbing Compound and let 5 minutes to dry between coats. Then remove with Terry Towel and reapply:



Then applied 3 coats of PlastX:


And finally 2 coats of Deep Crystal Polish:




And some more final pictures on the truck. You can see I also added a Line Of Fire to my tailgate just for added braking protection. Also note that I did not go extremely dark as I wanted the reflectors to still be visible and the brake lights to be visible. These are still legal as the reflectors are visible and brake lights can easily seen from 500 ft away which is state law for my area. I would not recommend going extremely dark over the brake lights as it does cut down on the visibility of the brakes during daytime driving.







Parking Lights on:




I will apply a coat of wax once they have set for a few weeks to complete the process

Looks great. It's amazing how good NiteShade can look when done properly.

Pretty sexy I'll have to say. Very good job, and at the same time a great walk-through for people wandering how to do this.

lbjshaq2345 wrote:

Pretty sexy I'll have to say. Very good job, and at the same time a great walk-through for people wandering how to do this.

im not gonna wander how to do it lol i may wonder though but good write-up. Looks good too! Seems like mucho work though! Hey you only get back what you put into though

Those turned out great and really look nice on your truck.

tomorrow I will be doing my 3rd brake light....I have some nitshades left over however I will go dark with the 3rd brake light

do you have any tips for wet sanding? i have seen people use a bucket and others use a spray bottle. what kind of pressure do you use? my first attempt at night shades turned out alright, but yours look amazing so i will be redoing them this weekend. Do you suggest me completely sanding off what is on there? or could i just sand off the clear and go from there? Any help will be greatly appreciated .. great write up

If you are going to redo the same tails that were previously niteshaded you need to completely remove it before starting again. The orange peel is going to be between the layers of paint which will cause issues with your final shine.

Use some paint thinner etc and sand it off...its going to take awhile to get it off though just FYI.

For wetsanding dont go in circles, go in the same direction over the entire light and go LIGHTLY, let the paper do the work, dont press hard. Just keep the paper wet. I used the dunking method with a small bowl filled with tap water and dawn dish soap...every 5-10 seconds of sanding just dunk the sand paper into the water and then sand again. If you feel the paper getting dry, dunk it. You can never use too much water when doing this

The key is the sanding between every coat as it takes the orang peel out. I also did this inside vs outside. Temperature is def a key here as it work with the paint vs against it.

very cool, thank you. looks like i got some work ahead of me. this was my first time trying it and i was kind rushed toward the end of it, its got a shine but its a dull shine, your looks so much better.

and the third brake light:

Before:


After



and with approval

looks awesome, got to do it on my car now

i tried out what you suggested .. i did it on the bottom of my air box so i could get comfortable with it. i used the blue i am going to do my interior with. i used 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of color, and 2 coats of clear .. wetsanding between them all except the last clear. i then did 2 coats of rubbing compound and a coat of wax. it turned out alot better than i expected, now i feel good enough to go for round 2 on the tails. thanks for your help.