[Dispraiser]

A few months ago, I decided to start a dash painting project in my Focus. Finally broke ground on it, and I figured I'd post the results, and say that the Duplicolor paint does an amazing job.

I picked up a few interior pieces made of various materials from the local junkyard. The pieces I painted today were from that Focus. It had no windows, and was sitting in the middle of a dirty, rainy junkyard. These were not very clean. In any case, the pieces I painted today were made of two different materials, Vinyl (I think that's what the door was made of) and plastic (the dash piece)



The results were just as I wanted. I've never painted anything for my car before, and I'm damned lazy, so I didn't do much to prep for painting. With these pieces, I just grabbed a wet rag (not even soap) and wiped off as many scuffs and dirty areas as I could find for a minute, dragged em outside, and painted them. No priming, no sanding, nothing.

Plastic Dash


Vinyl Doors


I left them in their original resolution (sorry 56kers) so you can see the original texture, and how well it was preserved. I'm by no means an expert at painting, and I didn't do a whole lot of prep. My goal was to get a dark interior color while maintaining the OEM bumpy texture. Mission accomplished, I'd say.

 

[VonKaiser]

That's some really nice work. How many coats did you use? I've often thought about painting the lower under part of my dash from grey to black to match the rest of the interior color.

 

[Foci_Fosho]

not bad for 1st time painting...
What about the rear trim? Is that going to match?

 

[Dispraiser]

Hehe, good to hear it looks nice, that's actually only one coat. It's tough shit, too. Without a knife or determined scratching with my fingernails, I couldn't get it up. I decided I'd make these, kick em and beat the shit out of em like my car is gonna get and make my call then if it holds up well enough. This isn't my trim, just an experiment. I'm planning on redoing the entire interior, of course.

These are my concepts that I whipped up in photoshop. I'll have to redo the seats, too.

I just bought some silver paint, I'm gonna toy around with masking off certain areas of the thing to get the silver and black going.

The one question I have is about durability. Is there anything I could get that would work like clearcoat and protect the paint, but not make it all shiny? I really love the OEM look.

 

[CrazyMatt]

Looking GREAT so far!

 

[Dispraiser]

Yup, gotta get some free time and do this. Next week I have friday and saturday off, hopefully I won't get lazy. I would LOVE to have a unique car. As much as my hellas and APC tails make it unique, it's been done before. This is much more original...

 

[Klondike]

it looks great, and yea its hard to be unique nowadays, so many things that have been tried, im unique in the fact that i have a spi, and itsnow painted white[]

 

[Logan175]

very cool. did you say you were gonna paint the seats? I was just curious to know if it would crack and chip away.

Logan

 

[SVT_BMXer]

wow....Dispraiser that looks great! nice work

 

[Dispraiser]

very cool. did you say you were gonna paint the seats? I was just curious to know if it would crack and chip away.

Logan

Nah, no fabric painting, gonna get those professionally redone, or maybe get some nice seat covers or something. Supposedly it can be done, but I've heard a story around here about a guy who painted his mustang's floor red and it ended up painting his legs for him until the car was gone.

 

[Templar]

interior rwo tone is my next project, nice photoshop.

 

[usefulidiotzx5]

i'd have to say you have some big balls to start ripping out parts in the interior and paint them with no painting expierence...but damn it paid off.....looks good keep it up...

 

[Dispraiser]

Heh, not from my focus. I went to a junkyard last winter and ripped em out of an absolutely mangled focus. These are my testers, so I can see if this all works nicely before I ruin my interior.

Is there anywhere online I can get matte clearcoat? I went around searching for some at the local shops and had a few "Autozone" experiences, where I go in and ask for a common part and they give me blank stares. Hell, I went to Toys with Noise, an automotive customizing company and asked for information on Matte Clearcoat or Wings West body kits and they gave me that stare. They'd never heard of Wings West, and the old ladies in the lobby didn't even know what clearcoat was. The one shop guy came out and thought clearcoat was only made for the outside of cars.

It's sad when I can't make places help me when I know what I want.

 

[DetroitBass]

what apint did you use and where did you get it?

 

[Dispraiser]

I picked up a few cans of Duplicolor Vinyl paint from autozone. Nothing fancy, I saw it and was like "Hey, 6 bucks, I'll give it a shot." Turns out it really worked out pretty nicely.

 

[lAj0828]

Very nice!!! I was planning on painting some stuff with this.

 

[GreySkorpion]

7 year thread revival........lol

 

[lAj0828]

7 year thread revival........lol

Oops lol. I tend to do that often.

 

[Blue5ive]

Gotta love revivals.



Be warned that on doors and trim; areas that get touched a lot, the paint will scratch off after awhile. I tested this with a couple different paints. Something like the top of the dash would be fine cuz it never gets touched, rubbed up against or scraped by your foot like door panels do.

 

[bbaltsm12]

awesome!! looks great! maybe ill take a look into buying some to redo my dash as well! thanks for the info