sheepdog
03-19-2007, 03:38 PM
Here's a brief writeup on converting high-traffic plastic pieces in your car to black, or other colors plasti-dip offers. This stuff is amazing, and makes these panels extremely durable. If you're converting to a grey interior, or just want to make your grey panels black, this is a great solution for the door guard strips and other pieces that plastic paint might scratch off of. These are all pieces from my GC8, but the idea is the same.
However, there are some things to watch out for, which luckily I seem to have run into so you don't have to.
First off: I had originally painted these pieces in Rustoleum textured paint for plastics. It was sticking well, except on these pieces where stuff scratched against them heavily a lot. Anyways, I figured it would be ok to just wash them and spray over it. I was incorrect. The plasti-dip sticks to the paint, then peels off and leaves the original tan plastic panel. Luckily this happened on my test piece before I sprayed all of them.
So I peel off the plasti-dip (worked well, kinda comes off like contact paper or something) and then proceeded to sand the pieces. I used 120 grit I think, since it was what I had, and I figured the plasti-dip would go on thick enough to hide the scratch marks left by the sandpaper. I was wrong again. The spray on plasti-dip is not as thick as the paint on or dip on versions, and it recommends you do several layers. Even then, the sand marks were really obvious. I re-sanded the panels with 220 grit, and it made a huge difference, but I think the damage was done. It doesn't look awful, and they'll do for now, but I'm going to keep my eyes out for new panels so I can start from scratch eventually.
But on to the good news. This stuff owns. If prepped correctly (which you should be able to do now) it sticks to the panels amazing. I've tested them with my fingernails, a flattip screwdriver, the works, and there is really no situation these panels would encounter that would cause this stuff to scratch off. And, it looks great, like a flat black. Here's a couple pictures of how mine turned out, but remember they still look kinda crappy from the sandpaper incident.
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/4907/unsorted059cd1.jpg
http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9246/unsorted061yp4.jpg
Also, I pulled apart my hvac knobs and sprayed the part that turns with it, this was after my experience with the other pieces. Light grit sandpaper and a wash, then 4 coats of plasti-dip. It came out great, and it's pretty sweet having a rubberized grip feel on those knobs. The rest of the parts were sprayed with the textured paint for plastic, and the JDM s204 center buttons should be here sometime in the next month. I also stuck my new Clarion head unit in there, to give you a better idea of how it would look in the dash, but also just to show it off :D
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/6307/unsorted063om0.jpg
Let me know if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to help if I can.
However, there are some things to watch out for, which luckily I seem to have run into so you don't have to.
First off: I had originally painted these pieces in Rustoleum textured paint for plastics. It was sticking well, except on these pieces where stuff scratched against them heavily a lot. Anyways, I figured it would be ok to just wash them and spray over it. I was incorrect. The plasti-dip sticks to the paint, then peels off and leaves the original tan plastic panel. Luckily this happened on my test piece before I sprayed all of them.
So I peel off the plasti-dip (worked well, kinda comes off like contact paper or something) and then proceeded to sand the pieces. I used 120 grit I think, since it was what I had, and I figured the plasti-dip would go on thick enough to hide the scratch marks left by the sandpaper. I was wrong again. The spray on plasti-dip is not as thick as the paint on or dip on versions, and it recommends you do several layers. Even then, the sand marks were really obvious. I re-sanded the panels with 220 grit, and it made a huge difference, but I think the damage was done. It doesn't look awful, and they'll do for now, but I'm going to keep my eyes out for new panels so I can start from scratch eventually.
But on to the good news. This stuff owns. If prepped correctly (which you should be able to do now) it sticks to the panels amazing. I've tested them with my fingernails, a flattip screwdriver, the works, and there is really no situation these panels would encounter that would cause this stuff to scratch off. And, it looks great, like a flat black. Here's a couple pictures of how mine turned out, but remember they still look kinda crappy from the sandpaper incident.
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/4907/unsorted059cd1.jpg
http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9246/unsorted061yp4.jpg
Also, I pulled apart my hvac knobs and sprayed the part that turns with it, this was after my experience with the other pieces. Light grit sandpaper and a wash, then 4 coats of plasti-dip. It came out great, and it's pretty sweet having a rubberized grip feel on those knobs. The rest of the parts were sprayed with the textured paint for plastic, and the JDM s204 center buttons should be here sometime in the next month. I also stuck my new Clarion head unit in there, to give you a better idea of how it would look in the dash, but also just to show it off :D
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/6307/unsorted063om0.jpg
Let me know if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to help if I can.