I know there are lots of threads for painting bowties, but all of them are for blacking them out. What if I wanted to paint my emblem red, but with some gloss. What paint/clearcoat would you recommend?

 

Just use a red rattle can paint for plastics and I'd go with the same manufacturer for the clear.

 

I painted my bowtie white.
Just like what AJBert said. Get some red rattlecan paint and clearcoat from the same manufacturer.

I personally used Krylon Fusion for plastics. All you have to do is clean the emblem off(I use rubbing alcohol) and shoot a few coats on. It came out pretty shiny for me.

Be sure to take the emblem off the grill. It's not difficult, and you'll get better results.

 

I blacked out my front grille yesterday on my '89, and pinstriped a red outline on the bowtie. It wasn't hard to do while the emblem was on (in fact you can't remove the emblem off the '89s) and I just used some Krylon hobby paint. It'll probably come off eventually, but it'll stay for a while. I didn't clearcoat it, cause I went flat black in the first place.

 

I painted mine red. I sanded mine down to remove oxidized plastic. Shot it with plastic adhesion promotor, then truck/SUV auto paint. Looks decent enough for a $400 Blazer.

 

you got that beast for 400? **** man I paid $650 for mine, with 210k miles on OE engine and my clearcoat's comin' off in flakes. runs though.

 

But it needed bumper, grill, pass. fender/mirror, driver's door was full of Bondo, every gear in the trans was burned, idler arm was worn really bad, tune-up, 4wd switch, alignment, and cooling system was full of rust.

I have right around $1K in it now(including purchase price) and a few parts that have yet to get installed.

If you can match the emblem as close to body color as possible, that would be the best IMO.

 

wouldn't be too hard to match colours either - take it to Napa or some other parts place since they can take a tool out to match the colour of your vehicle for paint.

 

or on the cowl tag or radiator tag it will say the color code of the vehicle.

but as other said, krylon is good, rustoleum as well, just clean it up well before you do it