this week has truly sucked at work. so I've been puttering in the garage on the truck at night. started on my center console. most of its out of the same 94 suburban that i got my front seats from. the rear cup holders are from a early 90's extended cab truck, the fronts and the plastic inner rear compartment are from another 94 suburban that was farther down the row at the junkyard.
first up, a color change/re-dying how to:
1. clean the part. i first start with castrol superclean and my trusty concrete brush. i then follow up with dish washing soap and warm water, scrubbing it with an old washcloth. let it dry thoroughly, and this is what you should be looking at:
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2. assemble your materials. you will need masking tape (i like blue 3m painters tape), pre-painting prep (i use prepsol from walmart), a roll of paper towels, and your dye (use SEM. duplicolor is crap.) sorry for the lack of can pic of the SEM.
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3. break the component down as far as possible to make it easier. the less you have to mask, the better.
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4. wipe it down until the paper town comes back clean. i find with my products its best to wipe it very wet, let it dry, and wipe it again. i repeat this process until my white paper towel comes out at the other end of the piece still white. if it looks like the pic, you're still needing to keep cleaning. fold the paper towel into quarters, and keep flipping to a clean side every time it starts to get dirty. there's no sense in just redistributing the dirt.
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5. once your piece is clean, mask off whatever you don't want dye on. on my console lid, i wanted the underside to remain the factory black, but not show any vestiges of the factory tan. so i also used some scrap paper from my trashcan.
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5. after masking, wipe it down and let it dry again, just to ensure no oil from your fingers or workbench got on the piece.
6. once its thoroughly dry from the pre-painting prep (i wait over night), begin to spray LIGHT coats. should look like overspray for the first 5 coats or so. just light dusting's. once the color starts to build some, then you go onto less light dustings. the part surface should NEVER look like it was spray painted (thick, very glossy paint). the SEM dye is thin enough that it dries almost instantly in my climate. i usually wait about 20 minutes in between coats.
when you have what you think is even and good color coating, let it dry overnight and walk out to direct sunlight. it WILL show any spots you may have missed. if you did miss some, spray the whole side again after wiping it with pre-painting prep. (remember about fingerprints).
7. reassemble your part
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8. if the texture feels a little gritty when you're done, that's OK. there's an easy fix. Wait about 2 weeks, and buff it with newspaper. newspaper is about the same as 4000 grit sandpaper. it will knock all the dryshot (what feels like grit) paint off. then, use formula 2001 for a nice, even, low gloss shine.
hope this how to helps some of y'all.
Michael
