A Mani-Cure for Aging Emblems

I have the fenders off of the 280z which gives me the opportunity to freshen-up the fender badges.  One common problem with the aging badges is the orange epoxy surrounding the letter Z; the epoxy begins to crack and oxidize badly.

The first step in restoring these badges is to "chip out" the aging epoxy.

Once the old epoxy is removed the chrome plating will be exposed underneath.  

Many people simply paint the surrounding area with a gloss red such as Rustoleum.  While I considered such a path, I really wanted a finish that closely resembled the stock look.  I was having trouble finding the right color which was a dark metallic orange.  I was browsing Amazon for metallic paints and came across a 3-part gel nail paint with a color that looked really close.  I decided to take a chance and ordered a base, color, and top coat.  For those that might like to follow this path, the paint came from Elite99, and the color code on the bottle is 9914.

I followed the instructions and applied the base coat, 3 coats of color, and a thicker top coat, using an LED UV curing lamp my wife already had (this type of gel nail polish requires the lamp for curing).  The nice thing about this paint system is that since the lamp is required for curing, I could let the coats "settle" and smooth out before curing them.  The resulting color is a very close match to the color of the epoxy chips I removed from the emblem (judging from the bottom of the chip that was not exposed to oxygen and sunlight).