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- 11 Miata GT PRHT, 00 Silverado RCSB
Painting your interior is a great mod that doesnt hurt the wallet and can give your car that personalized touch that you want. Its not for everyone though, because it does take a lot of patience and time. However, you will be highly rewarded if you do your prep work correctly and dont rush everything.<O
</O
First, the materials youre going to need are going to be:
Latex gloves I used five pair during the process. You can get 10 pair at Wal-Mart for just 2 dollars.
400 grit wet automotive sandpaper Make sure its for wet sanding. Normally its black. Wet sanding will cause the grit not to get clogged up and you can wash the residue from the object you are sanding.
Primer I used Plasti-Kote Ultra Enamel Gray Primer
Paint Depending on what you pick this can be more or less. I used Plasti-Kote Anodizit, which consists of a base coat and a top coat. The base coat is silver and the top coat is a translucent blue, to give an anodized effect. If you choose this paint, you will use a lot more of the top coat than the base coat.
Clearcoat I used Plasti-Kote Ultra Enamel Acrylic Clear Coat.
Step one is to remove all of the pieces that you want to paint from your interior.
There are plenty of thread on how to do this so I won't go into detail here.
After you have all of the pieces removed, youll need to take them completely apart until you have only the pieces you want to paint, if possible.
<O
Next, get out the sandpaper. Just a reminder, this is going to take a long time if you have a lot you want to paint but it will turn out better if you do it correctly. Sand anywhere you plan on painting down until you reach the factory plastic color. If there is no paint on the pieces already, get them good and scuffed up. Keep the surface wet and the sandpaper wet and the job will go quicker and more smoothly.
After youve sanded everything down, youre about ready to paint. First get out the masking tape and mask off any areas you dont want to end up the color youre painting. Make sure the tape sticks well, especially by the edges, so no paint seeps down under the tape.
Next, take your pieces outside and lay down some newspaper or a dropcloth. Put on some latex gloves so you don't get this stuff all over your hand. You can then also hold a piece in an area you didn't need painted, so you can have better access rather than painting it on the ground. Shake up your primer for about a minute and spray the pieces lightly. You can always apply more later, so remember that two thin coats are better than one heavy coat. Spray in a side to side motion, beginning before the piece and ending after the piece, and overlapping slightly to cover the whole piece. Make sure you spray all of the piece that you are painting too. This will give an even spray and cause the can to not sputter out globs. That happened to me once and that center piece you see there took four hours to fix because I had to go back to step one. When theyre all good and primed, let them dry to the touch. I waited about 30 minutes.
In my case with the door handles, I couldnt set them down or the paint would be ruined.. So I came up with this inventive way of letting them dry..
After everything was primed, I gave a VERY light sanding over the pieces again with 400 grit sandpaper..
Because my paint was a two step process I had to first apply base coat before the top coat. Follow the same method of spraying as you did with the primer to ensure even coats.
In the base coat picture you cannot see the center piece. Thats where I messed it up. Just remember to be patient and if you do mess something up, let it dry and sand it smooth again. If you cant get it to be smooth with the rest of the piece then youll have to resand all of it. Just start over from step one. It may be tedious, but in the end youll be glad you did.
Next after the base coat, I applied three coats of top coat. I let each coat dry for about twenty minutes before applying the next coat. I wont include a picture after each coat, but this is what it looked like after three coats of the blue top coat. Looking pretty good already, dont you think?
Sure it looks great and you want to go put it back in your car as soon as it dries, but you need one more step so your hard work will endure being touched frequently and not chip. Youll be ready to apply your clear coat soon. I waited four hours to make sure very well that the paint was good and dry before I applied the clear coat. When you apply the clear, spray the same way you have been and make sure you cover the whole piece. I applied two coats of clear coat on my pieces and it gave them a nice shine and made the color a bit deeper too.
Let the paint sit overnight so you will be able to handle it without fear of smudging or ruining the paint when you install everything back into the car. The next morning, take the masking tape off slowly and carefully and reinstall the pieces into their housings, or whatever they were attached to when taken out of the car.
Then just go backwards at your first step and reinstall all of the pieces back into the car. Voila! You have a cool mod that you can say you did all yourself and it didnt break your wallet!
Pros:
Looks very cool
Inexpensive
You can brag you did it all yourself
<O
Cons:
Takes a LOT </ST1of patience
If you mess up, you have to redo the piece
Cant go back to factory
</OFirst, the materials youre going to need are going to be:
Latex gloves I used five pair during the process. You can get 10 pair at Wal-Mart for just 2 dollars.
400 grit wet automotive sandpaper Make sure its for wet sanding. Normally its black. Wet sanding will cause the grit not to get clogged up and you can wash the residue from the object you are sanding.
Primer I used Plasti-Kote Ultra Enamel Gray Primer
Paint Depending on what you pick this can be more or less. I used Plasti-Kote Anodizit, which consists of a base coat and a top coat. The base coat is silver and the top coat is a translucent blue, to give an anodized effect. If you choose this paint, you will use a lot more of the top coat than the base coat.
Clearcoat I used Plasti-Kote Ultra Enamel Acrylic Clear Coat.
Step one is to remove all of the pieces that you want to paint from your interior.
There are plenty of thread on how to do this so I won't go into detail here.
After you have all of the pieces removed, youll need to take them completely apart until you have only the pieces you want to paint, if possible.
<O
Next, get out the sandpaper. Just a reminder, this is going to take a long time if you have a lot you want to paint but it will turn out better if you do it correctly. Sand anywhere you plan on painting down until you reach the factory plastic color. If there is no paint on the pieces already, get them good and scuffed up. Keep the surface wet and the sandpaper wet and the job will go quicker and more smoothly.
After youve sanded everything down, youre about ready to paint. First get out the masking tape and mask off any areas you dont want to end up the color youre painting. Make sure the tape sticks well, especially by the edges, so no paint seeps down under the tape.
Next, take your pieces outside and lay down some newspaper or a dropcloth. Put on some latex gloves so you don't get this stuff all over your hand. You can then also hold a piece in an area you didn't need painted, so you can have better access rather than painting it on the ground. Shake up your primer for about a minute and spray the pieces lightly. You can always apply more later, so remember that two thin coats are better than one heavy coat. Spray in a side to side motion, beginning before the piece and ending after the piece, and overlapping slightly to cover the whole piece. Make sure you spray all of the piece that you are painting too. This will give an even spray and cause the can to not sputter out globs. That happened to me once and that center piece you see there took four hours to fix because I had to go back to step one. When theyre all good and primed, let them dry to the touch. I waited about 30 minutes.
In my case with the door handles, I couldnt set them down or the paint would be ruined.. So I came up with this inventive way of letting them dry..
After everything was primed, I gave a VERY light sanding over the pieces again with 400 grit sandpaper..
Because my paint was a two step process I had to first apply base coat before the top coat. Follow the same method of spraying as you did with the primer to ensure even coats.
In the base coat picture you cannot see the center piece. Thats where I messed it up. Just remember to be patient and if you do mess something up, let it dry and sand it smooth again. If you cant get it to be smooth with the rest of the piece then youll have to resand all of it. Just start over from step one. It may be tedious, but in the end youll be glad you did.
Next after the base coat, I applied three coats of top coat. I let each coat dry for about twenty minutes before applying the next coat. I wont include a picture after each coat, but this is what it looked like after three coats of the blue top coat. Looking pretty good already, dont you think?
Sure it looks great and you want to go put it back in your car as soon as it dries, but you need one more step so your hard work will endure being touched frequently and not chip. Youll be ready to apply your clear coat soon. I waited four hours to make sure very well that the paint was good and dry before I applied the clear coat. When you apply the clear, spray the same way you have been and make sure you cover the whole piece. I applied two coats of clear coat on my pieces and it gave them a nice shine and made the color a bit deeper too.
Let the paint sit overnight so you will be able to handle it without fear of smudging or ruining the paint when you install everything back into the car. The next morning, take the masking tape off slowly and carefully and reinstall the pieces into their housings, or whatever they were attached to when taken out of the car.
Then just go backwards at your first step and reinstall all of the pieces back into the car. Voila! You have a cool mod that you can say you did all yourself and it didnt break your wallet!
Pros:
Looks very cool
Inexpensive
You can brag you did it all yourself
<O
Cons:
Takes a LOT </ST1
of patienceIf you mess up, you have to redo the piece
Cant go back to factory
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