We experimented with see through headlight bezels using ZEP Industrial Concentrated Degreaser and the Media Blaster.
Here's the degreaser I used:
https://amzn.to/3bqke1i
(this is an amazon affiliate link)
There are a few types of lights with parts made from completely clear plastic, which are then coated in Aluminum (most call it Chrome).
These lights were coated in not only aluminum, but they also had a clear coat on top of that, and I wanted to experiment with stripping everything off using boiling water and ZEP.
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Yo, what's up, i'm chris, you are at fly, ride, we're gon na be doing some experiments. I don't even know like this. Video is an experiment. I don't even know what day of the week, i'm gon na keep these going on.

So let me know in the comments when i do these behind the scenes. I just try things and i don't know how they're gon na turn out what day of the week should i do that, because it won't be tuesday. That's when i post how tuesday so anyway, let's dive into today's experiment, we're going to strip some parts down, make some transparent, headlight bezels and talk about all the cool things that we can do with that certain times. Headlight parts are made out of clear plastic, but you can't tell because they're covered in chrome and the chrome is actually just aluminum and we have something called zepp that we're going to use to eat the aluminum off of these parts.

That happen to be clear and that part's easy. But there is a hard part and that's what i'm going to show you right now, which is going to be how i can get this chrome to strip, because on top of the actual chrome or aluminum, there's a clear coat and that clear coat has a little Bit of pigment in there, which makes it look darker so as you can tell that's a darker chrome than this, which has no chrome treatment on top of it, no clear coat. Nothing like that. So the only way that i'm going to be able to get this off is going to be to boil a bunch of water and stick this in the water before it goes in the zep degreaser and we're just going to try to see if it works.

Right. Now now i want to do this as best i can without having too bulky apart. So i'm going to separate these two little sections. This is a this is a headlight bezel from an older, gt-r, so 09 to 14, and the sad thing is is all of those guys that have that car.

They want the brand new version of the headlights, and so these are basically paper weights they're, just not worth anything, and the unfortunate thing is they're actually even hard to work with. So i have to trim with my ultrasonic cutter right here, just a little piece so that i can even get this off good thing. I got a wonder cutter this little thing's dope. I can just hold the button and it's on so like i can use this to cut things ultrasonically now, so no wires, nothing, it's just easy to take on the go.

They didn't pay me to say that i wish they did, though. To be honest, i wish people paid me to say a lot of things because, like that, would make this all easier. Okay, here we go ultrasonic cutter. Hopefully that means it should come off nice and easy now nice and easy er all right.

Now that i have this, i need a pot of boiling water guess what i got one it's in there, i'm gon na go get it. I went to get this before, but i didn't have my ppe yeah, so i did a tick tock recently and somebody was upset at me. They said you know what you need to get ppe. I was like what is this dork talking about? It is proper protective equipment.
That's what these gloves are they're proper all right now that i got my ppe out of the way i am going to dip this piece of plastic into boiling hot water without my gloves, why why, though, why no ppe - i don't know why, so this is clear - We've got fingerprints on it, it's going in the water. This seems like a bad idea. Next to this bad idea, i've got another bad idea. The big giant thing of degreaser sloshing around thanks to our friends at zep.

So what i want to do is i want to get this plastic good and freaking hot in this boiling water and then after it's in this hot boiling water for a little while, but i want to stick it in the degreaser here we go this. Is it boys, if i do a good job, then the clear coat is going to come off and the chrome or aluminum, underneath that clear coat should go away? If i do a bad job, it's not going to do that, but the thing is and what concerns me is that i know it's going to come off from the back side easy. So you can see that it's super clear down there, but what i need to see i don't see yet, which is anything on the front side, so we're gon na do this now that i've got it kind of started. I'm gon na dunk this guy back in the hot water and i'm gon na.

Let it sit for much longer this time. Look at that reaction. I have no idea if any of this stuff is super harmful for us, so make sure if you do this use your ppe now i've always wondered about this. That looks like we've got black plastic under this, so maybe yeah.

I don't know why i thought this was clear too. Let's check this out, i'm just going to dip this part into the zep as well, and the difference is, is that this should completely come up that whole section. That's underwater that should completely strip free and come up 100 black with the plastic only showing the raw plastic. Underneath now this looks like we're.

Finally, getting somewhere looks like it's good and freaking hot. So i'm gon na throw this guy back in there yeah look. You can see it stripping just right there, that's sick, it's like it ate it away, check it out in the zep. It actually looks really cool and for some reason i stuck my hand right on the edge of the zeb bucket.

So now my hand's gon na be all dry. It's crap right there, it's like it's growing, but we can't tell because it's happening so slowly and look where i dipped it. First, you see that line right there, whatever degreaser is now in the bucket of hot water. Is right under john's face and it's fuming up right into his mouth? I can smell it.

So i guess it's like a back and forth thing. We just do it that way. Now, on the top part, i'm gon na hit this with the media in the cabinet and we're gon na compare if it looks really bad right up top, then that's one thing, but if it looks the same then we obviously wouldn't do this again. We would just maybe strip the chrome off the bottom, but i'm very curious to see how it goes like check it out as we're working through this, making it clear yeah, it's it's doing it.
It's really doing it harry. Oh, you know what so on the back side, totally black front side clear, coat weird, i would have not thought that that that had the same thing going on. So let's just alternate, then that goes in the zip. This goes in the pot yeah, i'm guessing.

This is super bad for us, considering it's it's like completely. It's destroyed, destroy all things, i'm feeling kind of light-headed. I don't know if that's because i feel good yeah. I have a little something special, a little little bonus for us.

This takes me about two months, but i take the tail light parts and if you look at a gtr, they have these little bulb covers in their tail lights and on the front of the bulb. Cover is like a silver paint, but if i soak those things for two months, two months they'll come out so um. That plastic will eventually release the paint that's on top of it and it kind of does it in a weird way, like it almost looks like a little film on there right now, but that guy needs to keep on going so i'm gon na throw that one Back in and hunt around and look that one is all the way to 55. It's all stripped off, so this one is now usable in a project.

All i have to do is just kind of clean it, so i guess a decent way to do that. For now just be some boiling water. I need four for a complete set. I don't want them in here longer than they need to be.

Oh check that one out it's like. Actually it's actually like. I wonder if the heat of the hot water will help it come off the rest of the way, because you could see it's like half halfway off what the heck yeah look at that that's dope. Maybe this will work.

Maybe i can just do the same thing with these yo that is sick. That's interesting! Okay, okay, try with one with more paint on it. I'm just gon na try a fresh one in there. Oh actually, let's try this one yeah yeah yeah, you're, you're, a smart man, john or if they even need to be in the degree center.

I don't want to do that. People have asked that i don't want to do it like. I get youtube's cool and all, but like i'm not going to die for it. That's for sure.

Oh, i wonder if going back and forth between the two things, just like the chrome part did so. What we're learning is that this degreaser and the paint and the hot boiling water they all have something to do with each other. So i'm going to do this now now that this guy's been in here for a minute, look at how it's responding. So it's clear coat is coming off as well, so let's go back down with that guy back in with this dude, i kind of just feel like this.

One is only coming off because i kind of got in there. It didn't seem like it's quite ready, yet very interesting though i mean, i think, once it's at the point that it's like starting to come off, maybe after just after i soak it in here for a while. I could just kind of rub it a bit, but i do think that it does need to spend a considerable amount of time in the degreaser first, because that that's not good to go yet back in the degreaser. She goes, and now this look at that.
It's just like the clear coat on this: just doesn't 100 want to let go on the corners and edges, i mean the glass cabinet and then everything yep. Now the only thing is with that. I'm what i'm actually thinking of doing now that you said that specifically because that one section right there like, i guess, i'm just going to sacrifice this to the to the youtubes. So, let's let this thing chill out for a minute and then to be honest, this is actually the truth of it.

If i did this thing exactly how i wanted it wouldn't show any clear anyway, i wouldn't ever use this thing clear, but what i would do is put a sticker on it and then i would paint it and then i would lift the sticker up and it You'd, have this dope little see-through thing. I have one up there that has the old fly ride, logo on there. The problem is that if it's too see-through, it looks kind of cheesy, so maybe the act of actually frosting it in the first place would eliminate the need to do this prep anyway. Maybe that's what we're about to find out.

Maybe this video is actually going to be whoa if it is you'll already know, because i already said it at the beginning of the video which is after right now that i'm filming - but maybe this is stripping chrome with zep versus stripping chrome with the blast cabinet. Since that is what i believe is about to happen, get some of this here, zip off. We will go out to the glass cabinet. I will say, though, if it's chrome with black plastic, underneath you don't want to use the blast cabinet, because that's so shiny and nice look at it.

Let's just let that guy cook go look at what that even looks like for now. So i think that's gon na definitely be the the win. That would definitely show up way better. I think this stuff's really bad for us too yeah, but yeah.

So i'll just blast this whole thing. You could feel it big time too, but my guess is a sticker. On top of that would look way doper than it being super clear, because you could see the source light right there versus this you'll just basically see the glow. We've now taken the parts out of the blast cabinet we've washed them off to get all the dust for all the aluminum oxide, and now i am just trying to get the last little bits of the aluminum off.

But as you can tell, this thing looks really freaking cool one interesting part about all of this is that when we stick it in the blast cabinet, it takes off the clear coat, that's covering the aluminum that the zep will strip off, and so, as you can See there's a couple little parts that are left so if i take this and just make sure that it's getting completely covered by the degreaser, it will just strip it right off so that little section as we see it will literally just wipe away in a second It'll be completely clear on that part of the light. We also have the black piece: that's in there, that has everything stripping off of it as well, and then i've got some little parts that might have all of the paint removed now from sitting in that hot boiling water for a while or they might be all Deformed and warped from being too hot of a liquid, let's take a look: oh it's hot i'll, just burn myself all right! I'm gon na burn myself less! Oh jeez, it's still too hot! Why do i do these things? Was it all for nothing? Yep looks that way. It looks as though these things just have to patiently wait in the zip. Not even boiling water will speed up the test of time.
Now. These, i don't think, would look cool frosted. I think they'll look so much better in the taillights, letting a hundred percent of the light shine through yeah. We got our four lenses.

That's super dope kind of looks like this. One's got some paint on there and stuff too yeah just a little bit. Look at that that chrome still does not want to come off, so this is a definitely a multi-step thing. I'm hitting it with the blast cabinet right here and right there, all right so imagine the reverse bulb and the turn signal bulbs stock in the gtr.

Have these little covers over them and they've got that silver paint? The paint does not look good so now, we'll have the led bulbs in place and they'll both be changed up to be white led so they'll be super bright, reverse lights, they're going to look completely different than they used to all, because we stuck these guys in The zep you all right, i finished this thing up. Finally, it's been stripped with zepp, it's been hit in the media cabinet. I hit it with that 320 grit. I've got all the different little pieces of chrome removed on there and now it's totally see-through.

So what we're going to be able to do next is put a little piece of sticker like a logo, anything like that on there, and then we can paint the whole thing and when you reveal that that sticker, when you lift it up, you're going to be Able to see a nice even glow in there so that it's diffused, you won't be able to see all the individual leds and it's going to look sick, and we could do that as you could tell on, like all sorts of different parts of this bezel. This would work the same exact way on a 370z as well, because they're both made out of clear plastic newer, gtrs, won't work even the back piece right here. We stripped that that's actually got black plastic instead of clear. So if you look at it, the two things are not made the same exact way.

So if you know that your part is made out of clear plastic and you treat it and get it ready, and you already know why you're doing it and how you're going to finish the project with some sort of cool glowing, logo and little led strips in Here this can be something really special that nobody has ever seen. I've certainly never seen a fully transparent headlight build for a 370z or a gtr, so i don't know if anybody ever builds that and you're watching this video comment. Let me know link it up, because i want to post and shout you out on here, because this would be amazing to do some cool stuff. So all right, what do you think about the experiment? I thought it was pretty crazy.
What day of the week should we continue doing these things on and did you like it? Did you like to actually see like us kind of screwing around having fun trying things learning as we went, because i couldn't tell you step by step what to do, but i did get to show you behind the curtain as we were goofing around anyway. Thank you. So much for watching what day of the week do we do experiments i'll see you next time.

By Chris

11 thoughts on “See Through Custom Headlight Experiment”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars kisakye tommy says:

    Thanks Chris for the good work brother. I have a truck with sealed beams and wanted to put strobes, any advise brother. Thanks in advance

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Brian Toste says:

    You need a tamale pot to boil water! You could fit the entire piece in at one time

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DJ Boom says:

    Damn imagine doing some adresseble RGB blue ghozt thing in there ๐Ÿ˜ณ

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars David Rowe says:

    I use easy off oven cleaner to take chrome off parts. Not sure how it works on clear plastics in terms of not leaving it hazy. I always paint them black afterwards anyways.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Amish Plumber says:

    Me being sad because my Silverado plastic is black n white under the chrome.

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Gary McNemar says:

    Definitely enjoy following you, through the entire start to finish! Kinda feels like I was actually there with you? Thank you for your interest in our opinion!

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Fablighting says:

    Experiment Fridays sounds like a winner๐Ÿ’ฏ๐Ÿ’ฏ๐Ÿ’š๐Ÿ’š๐Ÿ’š

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars HAMMER says:

    2 months for those GTR covers? Might be worth getting into silicone mold making and casting them in clear resin!

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars iNytrix says:

    In conclusion do you think boiling water + zep mixture makes it significantly faster?

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Bruce says:

    I'm working on my first taillight build and want to get my lenses frosted but dont have my own blast cabinet. I tried reaching out to a few companies but am told the plastic would be "damaged" or that it's too small of a job. Any way of doing it myself? I looked into sprays but I thought it wouldnt look as good as blasting it, I also wasnt sure if the spray would wear or look blotchy. Loving these longer videos, keep it up ๐Ÿ™Œ

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Juan Ortiz says:

    I donโ€™t care what day. Just glad you are making long videos again ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป

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