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      03-24-2016, 11:12 AM   #32
collinc14
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Drives: E92 335i
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Location: Newport Beach, CA

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Quote:
Originally Posted by nadaclue View Post
DIY Roundel Guide
April, 2009
by Nadaclue a.k.a. Chad

Part 1

Being a person who doesn't like to leave well enough alone, I feel that it's the small details in a car that make it special or unique. One day while sitting in my garage I decided that while the BMW roundel is nice and the BMW name carries some respect with it, that I wanted something different.

Internet searches brought up mainly carbon fiber or *gasp* jewel encrusted roundels. There were also for companies such as ACS, Dinan and other tuners but without the tuner parts I don't feel the car should have tuner badges.


So after a couple days of playing around with some spare roundels (82 mm to be exact) that I bought from ebay, I came up with the following:





This DIY guide is an attempt to help others who may want to do the same.

Step 1: Source your roundels

Depending on how confident you are, you can use the roundels that are currently on your car. This DIY is somewhat destructive, but no "donor" parts are needed. I bought mine off of ebay, or any used roundels will work as long as they aren't dented or deeply scratched. Here is the roundel I started with:





Just a typical 2 pin 82mm roundel that can be used on the trunk or side markers of an E85.


Step 2: Remove the clear coat (or sticker as it is)

So I didn't want to just put some cheesy vinyl sticker over my roundel, which meant I had to find out if I could strip this roundel down to a bare surface for some sort of painting or decal transfer. After a little investigation with an x-acto knife, I learned that the factory roundels are not clear coated with a paint, but rather have a clear sticker over top of them.



With a little persistance and use of the x-acto knife and scraping with the finernail I was able to fully remove the clear sticker.



Now we are left with an unprotected, albeit sticky, BMW roundel. Next we have,


Step 3: Remove the clear sticker residue and factory BMW coloring

Now you'll notice that your roundel is all tacky, this is the residue left over from the clear sticker. Nothing a little solvent won't fix. I have access to an unlimited solvent selection, but I tried to stick with the basics so no one should have trouble. The best off the shelf solution I found was acetone. You can get it at most paint/hardware stores or you can use fingernail polish remover. Here I've begun the wiping down using acetone:



After about 5 more minutes of wiping I'm left with:



That's when it got interesting. I learned three valuable facts; number one is that the roundel is actually 2 pieces, number two was that the inner roundel piece is aluminum, and number 3 is that the BMW logo is stamped into the aluminum disc. Being two pieces with the inner piece being metal made life easier in the long run. The fact that the logo is stamped proved to increase the complexity of the DIY roundel a little bit.





Step 4: Sanding the roundel to remove the stamped logo

In order to proceed the way I had originally planned, I needed to remove the raised portion of the factory roundel or else I'd end up with a ghost image coming through my new roundel. I began this little endeavor at work, and only had 400 grit sandpaper to work with but it ended up working OK, just more time and elbow grease than I thought. When I do this again, I plan to start with 220 grit and then finish it with the 400 grit. The goal here is to remove as much of the raised section as possible. After the first 30 seconds you can see the areas that will be problematic:




After about 25 more minutes of wet sanding, I ended up with this. While you can still see a slight ghost image, the fact that I will be painting the roundel helps here. I will use a sanding primer to build it up slight and then smooth everything out with sandpaper.




Step 5: Separating the two parts of the roundel

In order to be successful, I now needed to separate the aluminum disc from the plastic housing. I put the sanded roundel into a 230F industrial oven (do not use your home oven, the adhesive they used smells noxious and will potentially introduce chemicals into your oven) for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes I used a very flat object, in my case a chemical weighing spatula, to pry the two parts away from each other. I put the flat end at the very edge of the aluminum disc and carefully pried up. Be careful at this point, as the aluminum disc is very thin and easy to distort. Make sure the roundel does not cool before you try to pull it apart, you will bend and distort the disc.



Next I simply had to clean up the adhesive. Again, acetone works fairly well but it is harder to remove than the paint was. Be gentle but persistant and you will get all the residue off.






The next section of this DIY guide will show you how to paint your roundel a base color and then transfer your desired image to the roundel using inkjet water transfer paper. Hopefully I will be able to finish/update this by 4/13.
Sorry to bring up an ancient thread but I just had a quick question, did you use own roundels because I bought some eBay roundels and when I tried to cut the clear film off with an xacto knife I found the clear film to be like half a cm thick and brittle like dry sap, if I just pour acetone on it will it eat through the clear film? because if so I'll just do that
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