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mad_machine
mad_machine GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
7/22/12 1:18 p.m.

I wonder how this would work for keeping water out. I know the old rubber undercoating can be bad if it cracks.. it lets water in and keeps it in against the metal.. causing hidden rust.

Personally.. I might try it on the hood of my saab for winter.. like the first foot or so to keep the crud from destroying the paint

JohnyHachi6
JohnyHachi6 Reader
7/22/12 3:06 p.m.

In reply to mad_machine:

Yeah I was tossing around the idea of spraying the front of the RX-8 with it to cut down on rock chips etc. Would basically be like a bra, but less silly looking.

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
7/22/12 3:13 p.m.

Got it painted!!!

Taking a break rihgt now I was about to pass out. Looks good, had a couple hickups early but got it figured out.

Wife is on the computer so ya'll are going to have to wait for a little while tosee the results.

I'll post more later.

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
7/22/12 6:18 p.m.

OK got it put back together. Only thing left to do is peel it off of the rear window rubber.

I still need to clean up and am eating now. I'll just go ahead and post the pictures and later I will give a rundown of the problems and how everything went. Ask any questions you may have and I'll address them later.

All taped up.

First coat, big problems.

Around the third coat.

Still showing through with fourth coat.

Six coats and paper removed.

The0retical
The0retical Reader
7/22/12 6:30 p.m.

That looks incredibly good, at least as good as the advertisements. I'm awaiting long term results report :-)

HappyAndy
HappyAndy Dork
7/22/12 6:31 p.m.

That looks fantastic!

JohnyHachi6
JohnyHachi6 Reader
7/22/12 6:36 p.m.

Looks nice - I'm really going to think about doing this if your write up sounds promising. A few questions I came up with:

  • How tough was it to remove from the trim where you didn't mask? I'd be tempted not to mask anything and just peel it off the windows and trim when done. Any thoughts on that?

  • Also, after working with it, do you see any reason why you couldn't mix colors to get something other than what they sell? I'm interested in a grey and was thinking about mixing a little white in with some black.

  • Finally, how much did you end up using to do that many coats? You bought 3 gallons, right?

EvanB
EvanB GRM+ Memberand UberDork
7/22/12 6:39 p.m.

I recently did this to my Miata hardtop. It took more coats (3 spray cans) than I was expecting which probably had something to do with changing the color from black to white.

It is extremely easy to remove from trim, just make sure it dries completely and you use an x-acto knife to completely cut around the trim so it doesn't lift up the main coat.

mad_machine
mad_machine GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
7/22/12 7:47 p.m.

that looks a LOT better than I thought it would

Jaynen
Jaynen Reader
7/22/12 8:14 p.m.

Is it still showing through on the 6coats a little bit? on that pic showing the passenger door?

chandlerGTi
chandlerGTi HalfDork
7/22/12 9:03 p.m.
Jaynen wrote: Is it still showing through on the 6coats a little bit? on that pic showing the passenger door?

I think that's a electric wire above...

That looks really good for what it is. Keep us updated on how it holds up!

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
7/22/12 10:09 p.m.
JohnyHachi6 wrote: Looks nice - I'm really going to think about doing this if your write up sounds promising. A few questions I came up with: - How tough was it to remove from the trim where you didn't mask? I'd be tempted not to mask anything and just peel it off the windows and trim when done. Any thoughts on that? - Also, after working with it, do you see any reason why you couldn't mix colors to get something other than what they sell? I'm interested in a grey and was thinking about mixing a little white in with some black. - Finally, how much did you end up using to do that many coats? You bought 3 gallons, right?
  1. It peels of easily IF you get it thick enough. I did not in several areas and used vm&p naptha on a cotton rag and it came of very easily with that as well. Just be careful because that stuff wil ruin your fresh dip. I will explain why I taped the trim later. It would have been alot easier to just cover everything and peel it off later.

  2. You can order custom colors from the makers of plastidip. dipyourcar has a gunmetal grey as well. I'm not sure about mixing it together but in my opinion it should work.

  3. I used about 2.75 gallons. Including the large amount I spilled......twice.

I started prepping the car by using windex to wipe everything down. It has been very humid and even though the trim I painted was able to sit all night it was still very soft this morning. I had originally planned to just cover everything with the dip and then peel it off like they show on youtube. However I was concerned that the soft trim paint would peel off or be damaged so I decided to tape over the door trim and remove the rear side windows. On the windshield and rear window I taped up to about 1/4" away from the rubber gasket. At this point the junk tape I had wasn't sticking to anything and I realized I didn't have anything to thin it or clean the gun up afterwards so I made a trip to lowes and got a gallon of vm&p naptha which is the recommended thinner on the can and some new tape.

First I tried to spray it straight out of the can. It was a bit thicker than I anticipated and I was having trouble getting a good test pattern. I was using a 1.8 tip hvlp gun and had the pressure set to around 25 at the cap. I played with the settings and got a decent test so I started spraying it on the car. It did well for about half the trunk then it started spitting chunks and there where fine "hairs" coming out of the end of the gun, floating around settling on the car. I played with the air pressure to no avail and stupidly went ahead and finshed the first coat like that. The car almost looked furry. That was really a mistake. I tried to rub it off with my bare hand after it had set a while. Alot of it came of but it was still a very bad first coat.

Unfortunitly I was spraying in direct sunlight and it was setting as soon as it left the gun. After playing around with thinning it and air settings I was able to get a decent spray pattern. However this put a very thin coating on.

I ended up with about 30psi at the cap and I thinned the dip just onder 50%. I would say it would be close the the consistancy of 2% milk.

After playing around with it for a couple coats I finally got my distance and speed down. It really layed down very good with the gun a little over a foot away and slow enough that it was just on verge of running. This was very unnatural for me, I had to keep telling myself to pull away and slow down.

It's got some bugs in it and it looks better in the pictures than it does in person as far as texture. All the little boogers and crap in it really didn't show up in the pics. It is very bright, it's almost blinding in direct sunlight, not shiny but very bright.

It most likely would have went on better with the gun that dipyourcar.com sells. I had to thin it so much to get it to spray right the coats where very thin. In bright daylight I cannot see through it but when the sun started to set If I look very hard I can still just make out where some of the primer is.

All in all I'm happy with it and it looks very good from about six feet away. Now we get to see how well it holds up to daily abuses. I'm a little worried it's going to be very difficult to keep clean, especially from my dirty greasy finger prints. I think I'll keep a clean rag in the car to shut the hood and trunk with.

JohnyHachi6
JohnyHachi6 Reader
7/23/12 9:00 a.m.

Awesome. Thanks for the write-up. I hope it works out well with the day-to-day abuse.

Jaynen
Jaynen Reader
7/23/12 10:01 a.m.

Did you happen to get a weight out of curiosity?

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
7/23/12 5:17 p.m.

In reply to Jaynen:

No sorry I didn't get a weight. The shipping weight for the three gallons was 28 lbs.

Strike_Zero
Strike_Zero Dork
7/23/12 7:24 p.m.

Interesting . . . looks like something I could spray.

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
7/23/12 7:47 p.m.

I just read that the recommended pressure for spraying with air is 50psi.

bgkast
bgkast GRM+ Memberand New Reader
7/24/12 4:18 p.m.

How did the masking come off? I'm toying with the idea of some plasti-dip racing strips but am afraid they would lift when I remove the tape from the edges.

Conquest351
Conquest351 Dork
7/24/12 4:27 p.m.

That looks f-ing awesome! Great job!!

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
7/24/12 5:41 p.m.
bgkast wrote: How did the masking come off? I'm toying with the idea of some plasti-dip racing strips but am afraid they would lift when I remove the tape from the edges.

You have to pull the tape while the dip is still wet. If the stripes are narrow I would lay it on heavy and quickly, three maybe four coats then pull the tape. If geyser are wide spray the middle area leaving the edge along the tape line until last then heavy quick coats and pull the tape which is how I did it near my black areas.

Thank you all for the kind words.

Graefin10
Graefin10 Dork
7/24/12 6:42 p.m.

Looks good Nicksta. Is it subject to come off by spraying it with a high pressure water hose or by washing it with detergent?

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
7/24/12 7:23 p.m.

In reply to Graefin10:

I guess if you catch an edge with a pressure washer it'll come off. There are videos out of people hitting it with a pressure washer with no ill effects. I think yoyu just have to be careful and use a little common since with it.

I think the more aggresive cleaning agents may be an issue, such as some wheel cleaners. Reguler car wash soap or even dish washing liquid should present no issues.

dj06482
dj06482 GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
7/24/12 9:23 p.m.

Thanks for the update, it looks like it came out great!

nicksta43
nicksta43 HalfDork
7/29/12 2:03 p.m.

Well, everything seems to be holding up fine after a week. The only issue I have is when I installed the trim on the passenger window I didn't have it lined up correctly and when I shut the door it hit the A-pillar and put a cut in the plast-dip. I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet but when I do I'll detail the process.

I washed it for the first time. The best thing to use that I've found is an Absorber drying cloth. Microfiber and cloth leaves a lot of tiny fibers all over the car. But the Absorber leaves it squeaky clean. All of the dirt and stains that had accumulated over the course of the week came off easily. With the exception of some bug guts.

I went ahead and installed the front bumper and all the associated rubber filler pieces got three coats of black plasti-dip. It made these thirty+ year old faded rubber pieces look like new.

Here are some pics;

Both front and rear bumpers are tucked.

Representing

I hopefully this can get moved to the new build thread section. 1980 BMW 320i

Edit; never mind I see it's already here

Dusterbd13
Dusterbd13 Reader
7/30/12 10:09 a.m.

so are you just using the black plasti-dipo from a rattle can on the rubbers and stuff? im trying tp figure out how to revitalize the rubbers and trim on my neon. was planning on using back to black and a lot of elbow grease, but if this is working well, ill do this.

what is the prep for using it on the trim?

michael

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