Black RAPTOR On My Ford Transit: Trim, Hood And A Roller Correction

Black RAPTOR changed the lower half and hood of my white Ford Transit, but the finish took more work than the first spray application. When I looked at the sides in daylight, some areas had more sheen than others. I went back over the side trim with a roller, and that correction became the most useful part of the project to document.

The result was more even and shinier than the matte appearance I had originally wanted. I was happy with how the van looked when I removed the masking and walked around it. These are my preparation photos, the change in application method and the finished result.

Watch The Trim-And-Hood Project

What I Coated On My Transit

Before I started, the hood was white, and a narrow white strip ran below the dark side molding. My opening walkaround follows that strip, the wheel arches and the front bumper before I describe coating the hood. The finished black band would join areas that had looked like separate pieces around the bottom of the white van.

This project brought the lower side trim, rocker areas, arches, bumpers and hood into the same black textured finish. The photographs show the contrast between the large white body panels and the darker band around the bottom of the van. At the front, the hood became a much larger textured black surface.

The work is separate from my white-bedliner project. That article follows the white coating and its own masking and finish problems. Here, the product packaging, application footage and final photographs belong to the black RAPTOR trim-and-hood project.

My Method wheel-and-tire upgrade is another part of the exterior story. Those black wheels are visible in the finished photographs here; the coating work follows its own preparation and correction sequence.

Masking The Edges And Preparing The Surfaces

Before the black coating went on, the van looked very different. Blue tape marked the borders, while paper and plastic covered adjacent areas. Around the front, I masked the lights, grille, hood vent inserts and windshield edge. The scuffed white hood was still visible inside that masking.

The preparation involved washing, degreasing and sanding as well as masking. My recordings also document rain and moisture interrupting the work. By the next morning I was looking over the masked surfaces as they dried and preparing to continue.

I used a tack cloth to collect debris and the little red fibers left by my drying towel; my tack-cloth preparation notes show the HDX packet and used cloth. I also introduced the Dupli-Color can for the plastic trim in my adhesion-promoter preparation notes.

One thing I like about keeping these photographs is that they show the amount of surrounding detail involved in a seemingly simple change of color. The hood has vent inserts and borders near the windshield; the side coating meets long edges below the white panels. The tape and coverings make those boundaries visible before the final finish hides the preparation.

The Primed Hood Before The Black Finish

The next clear stage in my photographs is the gray-green primed hood. Paper, plastic and tape were still in place around it. Comparing that image with the scuffed white hood makes the progression easy to follow: preparation, primer, then the black textured surface.

My Rust-Oleum self-etching primer page brings together the primer record, primed-hood view and preparation sequence from this project.

The finished hood photograph matters just as much as the intermediate one. It shows the texture across a broad panel and the edges around the vent inserts. The inserts and grille remain visually distinct from the newly coated hood.

I Sprayed The First Black RAPTOR Finish

My initial plan included a roller, but I used the spray setup for the first black coating. The project photographs show the black RAPTOR packaging, and my equipment walkthrough shows the coating bottle and the gun supplied with the kit connected to an air line.

My BOSTITCH compressor and air-setup notes connect the visible air setup to this project and distinguish it from the bottle gun supplied with the RAPTOR kit.

Getting the van coated did not finish the story. The next useful check happened in daylight, when I could look along the sides and compare how the surface reflected light. That view exposed a difference I had not been happy with: some sections looked flatter, while others had more sheen.

The Uneven Sheen That Sent Me Back To The Roller

The sides were the area I wanted to improve. In my recorded inspection, I pointed out the variation and decided to add more RAPTOR with a roller along those visible side surfaces.

The later application footage shows a black-handled textured roller and tray beside another RAPTOR kit. It then shows me rolling coating onto the already sprayed lower side trim. That is the corrective step, distinct from the roller I had shown earlier without using it for the first application.

After rolling, I described the finish as more even. I also noticed that it had become much glossier. I had wanted more of a matte look, so the correction changed two things at once: the consistency I wanted to improve and the amount of shine I could see.

That tradeoff is the part I would pay closest attention to when looking back at this build. I preferred the more even result and was pleased with it, even though the appearance had moved away from my original matte preference.

Before, Preparation And The Finished Result

My Takeaway From The Black RAPTOR Project

I was very happy with the finished appearance. The full side photograph shows how the black lower band sits against the white body, while the front photograph shows the texture and shine that are harder to judge from a distant view.

The project also gave me a more specific lesson than simply whether I liked the coating. Spraying was one stage; inspecting the result in daylight and correcting the sides was another. The roller made the side finish more even in my assessment, and it also made it shinier.

At the end of this recording, I still had the grille, hood vent inserts and other small details on my future-work list. The photographs here capture the completed trim-and-hood stage and the result I was pleased to walk around and show.

Coating And Roller Pages

My RAPTOR coating purchase page collects the kit record and alternatives. The roller-and-tray page covers that purchase and separate Amazon options.

Next, follow the Method MR701 and BFGoodrich transformation, compare my white-bedliner project, or browse the original build diary.