Plasti Dip

I've been playing around a little with plasti dip on the interior pieces. After watching a few videos on the dipyourcar youtube channel, I may end up doing the exterior. Anyone else consider this?

I think this chameleon pearl would look great on a SLC: Color Changing Plasti Dip! (Chameleon) - YouTube

Pete,
Last week my son and I plastidipped our cobra. We're finishing up our cobra before we start for sure on our SLC. The experience went well and I can post pics at the weekend if you like Can't speak to the long term suitability of the product, but am very happy with the initial results.
Stephen H.

Stephen - Please post pics, I'd love to see how your Cobra turned out. For long term durability, some of the appeal of the product is when how get tired of the color, peel it off and dip it another color.

Some of the kids doing the imports and tuner cars have found that using the "ICE WAX" type products to the finish adds some longevity to the product. The problem I think, is that the rubber oxidizes or degrades a bit and fades the color. Went on one of the community forums and searched for fading and came up with these threads.
Search Results - DipYourCar.com Plasti Dip Community Forum

High end dip jobs appearance after one year?

What NOT to use on dip

There are a few discussions already on our forum. Search for them and read what has already been discussed. Cruise the community forum for other questions. These guys are doing it all the time and have a lot of the what ifs pretty well covered.

Bill

I love plastidip. Here is a pic of my friends car and my old car that I recently parted out. (Money in my SLC fund now) Both fully built AWD Turbos. 500HP plus. He plans to build the Apex.

Peeling the dip off is very easy and doesn't damage paint. It did however cause things like the front bumper and side skirts to look faded after the dip came off. I wonder if plastidip would damage the gelcoat.....

Dave,
I sanded the top of my cabin and door tops planning to add a molded scoop for my rear view camera. The center of the cabin went all the way down to the Gel coat and the doors just to get the unevenness that the strips left. As I remember I think I took it down to 180 grit. After doing that I decided against the scoop. To cover it I applied 4-5 coats of black Plastidip. I did it with the individual spray cans. I had bought them some time earlier planning to experiment with them. It came out O K but there were some "tiger strips" that did barely show up. I left it on til just the other day. I am now in the process of painting the entire car(paint). the "Dip was on there for the entire summer, fall, and winter. It was garaged since the fall due to a "slight" accident to the rear clip. It peeled very easily coming off in large almost complete sheets. There was absolutely no damage or change to the Gel coat. I will post some pics tonight when I get home. Did you consider buffing those parts that looked dull? Those are plastic parts and may have been an impregnated plastic(color) and the thinner may have attacked it??

Bill

PeteB said:

After watching a few videos on the dipyourcar youtube channel, I may end up doing the exterior. Anyone else consider this?

Click to expand...

I've dipped emblems/badges/grills etc. Would not dip my paint. I've seen videos/photos where NOT the entire car was dipped. After only a couple months when the plastidip was removed there was a color difference in the paint. Tons of people have done without issue, but you're taking some chance it affects the paint. There are other wrapping possibilities out there, not sure these are any different however.

Interesting topic, I just painted the wheels black on my daily driver.



I started with Rustoleum Flexi-dip and ran out with just a little left to spray. So I went to a different store, but they didn't have the Rustoleum. I bought the Plasti-dip instead. Big mistake. It didn't go on as smoothly, left a textured finish. Nowhere near as good as the Rustoleum. I wound going back and getting another can of the Rustoleum and smoothed over the Plasti-dip the best I could.

Its a lease car, so I like the ability to peel it off later. Standard paint wouldn't work for me in this situation.

I thought this thread was going to be an April fools joke, I was looking for a punch line...

One other thing I learned about plastidip (sorry to say) is that when you spray other things over the plastidip like clear coat or regular spray paint, it loses it ability to come off neatly as it usually does. You could be sitting there for hours pulling tiny pieces off those rims....hope thats not the case since it sounds like the product you used is similar.

AJ - You don't dip a car using a rattle can, you use a spray gun.

There's plenty of DIY instructions out there on how to rattle can your car with conventional paint. Doing it with Plasti-dip wouldn't be much more of a stretch.

Flexi-dip and Plasti-dip appear to be similar enough that it isn't an issue. I had a few spots buckle because I put the 2nd go-round of Flexi-dip on too thick. I peeled it back to remove the affected areas and all layers came off easily. We'll see how easily it comes off after the wheels heat up and it bakes on....but its not the end of the world if it doesn't.

A. J.
2 points.
1. The texture is from the can being too far away from the target. The droplets dry in the air before it hits. there is a cure for that as well. You spray some of the thinner on top of it. the surface will become shinny and sticky(don't touch, just take my word) then you spray more of the Dip on top of that after about 15 minutes wait. there is a video for repairing the Dip on wheels.

2. There is a video on Youtube that shows you how to repair the plastidip if it blisters or lifts or is scratched.

You can get "tiger stripes" using the spray can. It is better to spray with a spray can "gun handle". Your finger gets tired of holding the head down and you miss your aim, or it starts spattering from not holding it down completely. If you don't want to spring for the sprayer they advertise and are doing small projects, buy the 14.5 oz. cans and use the Prevail sprayer. It has a better nozzle.

Bill

Thanks for the tips, Bill!

I used a gun handle. I got the cheaper one, and it already broke. It wasn't much more comfortable than not using one, at least for small projects like this. Home Depot had a more expensive "ergonomic" one, I'll try that next time. But I learned my lesson with rattle cans painting some shelves a few years ago. After going through nearly a dozen cans, the tips of both of my index fingers were numb for a few weeks.

The splattering was my fault, I didn't clear the nozzle between coats. But I did the same thing with the Flexi-dip and didn't have problems with it. Anyhow, I never would have thought this stuff would have worked this well without reading about it on another forum.

I thought this thread was an April fools thread...I guess the joke's on me.

Here are some real world pics of Plastidip'

The spray gun handle.


The better spray cap. The red cap spatters a lot.


First attempt, 4 coats, did not sand the stripes level. peeled it later on and sanded them down and resprayed.


Closeup with flash(black). If you want a shinny coat, they make a "glossifier" that gets it to something between true gloss and semi gloss. Look for videos where they use the glossifier. It peels easily.


Spyder with Dip. 2nd attempt. If you look close you can see the stripping in the areas around the rear view camera. This happens when you don't have good overlap. Add another layer or two and it usually straightens out.


Closeup of spyder. Color of paint is Ford's dark shadow grey without the red pearl.


More spyder.


Side mirror.


I have been experimenting on getting the Linden Green color with the plastidip as it was the cheapest option. It involves using industrial pigments. I found a Sherwin Williams store that supplied them and one of the managers is a gear head. When he heard what I was trying to do he gave me a generous sample of the colors I wanted and didn't even charge me. Just gotta give him a ride when I finish. To keep from getting too long winded I got close but could not match what I had for a source. Looked just like it wet, but when it dried it was always too dark. So after I put my second choice, the Gun metal grey, I found a few errors(texture and a run) after about 3 coats. Plastidip, when it runs it is like a sheet moving instead of the fingers you see with paint. Knowing I was going to have to peel it off and needed more coats. I mixed all the samples of the Dip and added some anthracite grey I had laying around and not enough to do anything with and sprayed it on 2-3 more coats. Interestingly enough, this is what the resulting color looked like .



Here is a quick video to show how easily it peels. To do the complete car takes about two hours or so. The curves and scoops really slow you down.
P2210316_zps4a226d0f.mp4 Video by Billmusarra | Photobucket

Bill

Could only figure out how to upload 1 photo - hope this gives a good feel for what the cobra looks like. I bought the professional kit from dipyourcar.com with 3 gallons of matte black and 1 gal of their glossifier. We did spend time with the various YouTube videos and I'd be happy to share more photos and our notes if you're interested.

Stephen H

Looks good!

I'm going to buy the spray gun as I am definately going to dip the interior pieces. I've got an old truck that the clearcoat is peeling off of, so I'm going to practice on the truck before I decide on dipping the SLC exterior.

I just ordered the gun kit, black, clear, glossifier, and some Red Rum Candy Pearl. I'm going to do most of the interior pieces in black, and the dash pods and bottom of the door panels in the Red Rum.

Interior hell, friend of mine did the entire car:



That's green Plastidip.

Hi Pete,

I see you have done some of your interior pieces in plasti-dip.

Could you please post some comments on how the finished product turned out? How does this compare to the Alfa soft-feel stuff? Does the coating appear to be durable for interior wear items? Where did you source your materials?

Thanks!