Shitty Series 1 R34 Interior Plastic Paint

[GTSBoy]

Ignoring the loss of texture, use high fill primer instead of filler. Sprays on like paint. Is paint.

[silviaz]

1 hour ago, Kinkstaah said:

The problem I've found is that these panels have a texture to them. So sanding them removes the texture, which means you'd have to re-sand it all, and re-texture it all in some uniform fashion.

I believe there's various kinds of plastic fillers that are probably well suited for this, but I only ever noted it in the "Doable but pretty damn hard basket".

Plus, my scratches are on the passenger side 😛

Yep same here lol. Yeah I thought if I sand it, it will be a smooth texture unfortunately, I guess I'll have to bit that bullet or risk the paint turning out shit from not painting it. How the hell does that pillar get scratched up anyway? I never scratch up my cars interior like that.

[silviaz]

1 hour ago, GTSBoy said:

Ignoring the loss of texture, use high fill primer instead of filler. Sprays on like paint. Is paint.

High fill primer to fill in deep scratches? Won't I need a f**k ton of primer for that as high filler is meant for once the filler has already been put in?

Edited April 12 by silviaz

[GTSBoy]

How f**king "deep" can scratches in interior trim actually be?

Spray the primer on, sand it down. Spray some more on. Rinse, repeat. It'll be fine. If you're happy with a smooth finish, anyway. You might have to learn how to spray topcoat for a lumpy finish if you want something like original texture.

[Kinkstaah]

That's the kicker for me anyway, wrinkle paint on interior pieces seems weird. You could probably re-texture it by pressing something in there, but at some point you could get the whole thing flocked or lined with cloth or some other option.

Sadly the scratches on mine are really pretty severe. They happen when people take the head unit out. The head unit/center carrier 'thing' has some wild edges on it that just mutilate the plastic when people are in the process of taking it out/removing plugs and twisting it this way and that to disconnect it all, or reconnect it all.

[silviaz]

36 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

How f**king "deep" can scratches in interior trim actually be?

Spray the primer on, sand it down. Spray some more on. Rinse, repeat. It'll be fine. If you're happy with a smooth finish, anyway. You might have to learn how to spray topcoat for a lumpy finish if you want something like original texture.

Alright I'll give it a go. Ideally I want a textured look, but I'll spray one panel and see how it looks, if it looks like shit, I'll look into topcoat. When you say sand after the primer, do you think 800 grit would be good enough as it will sand down any imperfections fast enough without scratching the primer?

[silviaz]

28 minutes ago, Kinkstaah said:

That's the kicker for me anyway, wrinkle paint on interior pieces seems weird. You could probably re-texture it by pressing something in there, but at some point you could get the whole thing flocked or lined with cloth or some other option.

Sadly the scratches on mine are really pretty severe. They happen when people take the head unit out. The head unit/center carrier 'thing' has some wild edges on it that just mutilate the plastic when people are in the process of taking it out/removing plugs and twisting it this way and that to disconnect it all, or reconnect it all.

That makes sense, weird, I've taken my head unit out several times and have never scratched that part.

[GTSBoy]

43 minutes ago, silviaz said:

Alright I'll give it a go. Ideally I want a textured look, but I'll spray one panel and see how it looks, if it looks like shit, I'll look into topcoat. When you say sand after the primer, do you think 800 grit would be good enough as it will sand down any imperfections fast enough without scratching the primer?

Nah, to remove excess high fill, 240 or 320 probably. 800 will take ages, clog and be a bitch. You don't care if you scratch the primer at these stages anyway, because there's more going back on over the top. You will soon see/feel/learn what grit to finish on, but I'd be willing to bet you never go finer than 400 for a bloody primer!

[silviaz]

15 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

Nah, to remove excess high fill, 240 or 320 probably. 800 will take ages, clog and be a bitch. You don't care if you scratch the primer at these stages anyway, because there's more going back on over the top. You will soon see/feel/learn what grit to finish on, but I'd be willing to bet you never go finer than 400 for a bloody primer!

Ah ok cheers. Oh yeah I forgot that apprently if you go too high on the sand paper number that if the primer is too smooth, the paint won't stick to it. From memory, panel beaters go up to 400 only on the last sand.

Edited April 13 by silviaz

[silviaz]

On 1/11/2009 at 10:38 PM, Wacky Dee said:

man this has been such a pain in the arse experience all around for me .. as I'm a bit of perfectionist and I've now repainted all the bits 3 times with 3 different colours and I've FINALLY found one that I really like ...

I've decided on PowerPlus Black Matte for triple guage pod, vents and AC fascia. Two coats of it, no primer or clear and it looks really nice .. very similar to the dash colour so it blends in nicely.

For the handbrake surround, and 2din stereo fascia and the door bits I've finally settled on Powerplus TUNGSTEN -- farken awesome colour! It's a silver metalic with a slight greenish hue ., hard to explain but it looks awesome.

Couple of tips for people still intending to do this:

1) if you're gonna use Powerplus sprays, buy the small cans (150g) rather than the big ones ..so much easier to handle and shake. It's VERY important to shake the can hard for atleast a minute before using and during use otherwise it spits out some gooey clear crap that ruins the surrounding paint. The smaller cans are slightly more expensive but so much easier to handle and shake and less chances of that gooey crap coming out (didnt happen once to me with the small cans but happened 2-3 times with the big ones)

2) matte black (powerplus) without clear is really nice for the triple guages/vents/AC ...don't use clear, it looks the gays. Like spilled fish and chips all over your dash...

3) door trims are piss easy to remove - I don't remember who said it was hard, but they musta been doing something wrong. Well, it does help that I've seen the audio installer guys do it the other day .. took me literally 5 mins to take off both door trims and disconnect the wires, without breaking anything.

4) use methylated spirits to remove factory paint or if you dont like the paint you choose .. soak the plastic and scrub with some green household scrubbers. Shit comes off so easy it's not funny. WEAR RUBBER GLOVES though cause the crap eats your skin and dries it up..my finders are still sore. Best to get a packet of those single use ones and just discard everytime you've cleaned onc piece in order to not contaminate paint when handling finished pieces....

I'll post some piccies in the next day or 2 ... still need to redo my vents/ac tommorow. I've done and redone my console bits so many times now I've got the feeling if I had to redo it all it wouldn't take me more than 90 mins to do the whole car

Anyone know alternatives to powerplus tungsten? Can't find an alternative online. 

[silviaz]

I noticed, a lot of these interior panels like the a/c unit and the head unit surround, don't necessarily need to be painted as when you remove the sticky shit it looks decent lol