What do you guys use for painting inner plastic panels?

Finally found a cupholder for my truck.  Only problem is the truck is grey inside and this is blue.

What works well to paint these type of plastic pieces?

Off the shelf I have found nothing that really works better than the plastic spray paints sold at the FLAPS

Friend of mine runs a company called FiberNew and they do a ton of plastic repair for the used car industry.  They do a lot of color matching of panels and repairs. All he can tell me about the primer they use is that it comes from Germany and is supplied by the franchiser.

For quick off the shelf, plastic spray cans from FLAPS as NOHOME mentioned. For higher quality and color matching I like PPG DBI for hard plastics and SEM for squishy stuff.

In reply to NOT A TA :

Yeah, not really looking for great quality or color matching.  I want this as an intermediate step and a template so I have something to build off of later, so I'll grab an off the shelf can

This thread is of interest to me.  I have a couple of plastic door cards that are the wrong color.

I had great luck before with the Duplicolor Vinyl Dye I grabbed from the FLAPs.  It held up fine making my grey Rx-7 interior into a black Rx-7 interior.  I'd recommend a flat/semi-gloss clearcoat over high contact areas (arm rests, sill plates, etc.).  Those were the only areas that showed any wear after 3 or 4 years of use.

What is FLAPS"? 

I get better results with DupliColor instead of Krylon or Rustoleum.  

I've had good luck using SEM products. As with painting anything, prep is the key to good results. I start with a thorough cleaning with soap and water, mild sanding if needed, clean again, dry, then use one of SEMs plastic prep products that is an adhesion promoter, and finally an an auto interior paint. I took a part in the color I wanted to the local industrial coatings place and the guy scanned it to get suggested matches, then tried a few color samples next to it until we found one with both agreed was really close.

The adhesion promoter is a couple really light coats that you leave on for 10-15 minutes (or something like that) and smells a lot like solvent. It makes the surface tacky (but don't touch it!) and my guess is that it just melts/softens up the top few thousands of an inch of plastic, and then the first coat of paint actually kind of dissolves into and bonds to the plastic. Subsequent coats stick to the first coat of paint.

Before and after of the rear speaker panels.

I don't have a good before here, and these bits weren't so sun-beat as the rear parcel shelf area, but the shifter surround part started as black, and so after plastic-welding repairs and moving the shifter hole for a six-speed, I sanded and painted to match the rest of the console.

Installed to give an idea of the match. I'm really pleased with how this came out.

Scotty Con Queso said:

What is FLAPS"? 

Favorite Local Auto Parts Store, I believe.

These acronyms get me, too. I'm still stuck in the 90s where FTW means Berk the World.

WonkoTheSane (Forum Supporter) said:

I had great luck before with the Duplicolor Vinyl Dye I grabbed from the FLAPs.  It held up fine making my grey Rx-7 interior into a black Rx-7 interior.  I'd recommend a flat/semi-gloss clearcoat over high contact areas (arm rests, sill plates, etc.).  Those were the only areas that showed any wear after 3 or 4 years of use.

In addition to this, start with Dupli-Color's primer. It bonds so much better with it.

Appleseed said:

WonkoTheSane (Forum Supporter) said:

I had great luck before with the Duplicolor Vinyl Dye I grabbed from the FLAPs.  It held up fine making my grey Rx-7 interior into a black Rx-7 interior.  I'd recommend a flat/semi-gloss clearcoat over high contact areas (arm rests, sill plates, etc.).  Those were the only areas that showed any wear after 3 or 4 years of use.

In addition to this, start with Dupli-Color's primer. It bonds so much better with it.

Good call. I believe I only used the Adhesion Promoter that ae86andkp61 references above.   I'm sure either would work fine.

In reply to ae86andkp61 (Forum Supporter) :

Interesting, I don't think I've ever seen SEM paint products before.  I'll have to look if this fails.

I went with Duplicolor and am giving a primer coat.

SEM works well for me.  For a long time Just Dashes dot com would custom match anything you needed.  They will sell you a dram of their proprietary vinyl dye.

Use Bulldog adhesion promoter first, then spray with whatever color you use.  The adhesion promoter really does wonders.  I did the Just Dashes route on the faded interior pieces in my 73 station wagon, and it held up to all kinds of cargo whacking off of it.

I've done a few plastic door panels with Krylon Fusion and / or Rustoleum's version. Both have held up and looked good. If not already mentioned prep is the important thing.

In reply to wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks. I'm so used to dealing with TLA's that I had a hard time processing this. 

When restoring interior plastics I can't over emphasize the importance of cleaning enough. Many times, the particular piece has been soaked with products like Armor All or Back to Black repeatedly, for years. It is very important to try to remove any traces of it as it can make painting/dying look bad or flake off as soon as the piece gets hot a few times. This should be done before any repairs are done because you can grind dirt & other contaminants like Armor All into the plastic.

The first thing I do with any pieces is clean them thoroughly (front & back) with soap & water then clean them with wax & grease remover a couple times (also front & back). Cleaning the back sides prevents you from contaminating the front when handling the pieces. The pieces have the same oily chemicals on the backsides that evaporate out of the interior components and make cleaning the inside of the windows a pain.

Those looking for the cheap way to good adhesion without using expensive adhesion promoter, primers, etc. you can do it the way we used to do it years ago. When you're ready to paint/dye wipe the surfaces with wax & grease remover to get them clean then wipe lacquer thinner on wet and shoot the piece as soon as the thinner evaporates. It softens the plastic a bit and allows a better mechanical grip for the paint/dye.

The "clear in a can" products usually make the interior parts look "funny" because they are glossy and the stock parts aren't. I only use gloss clear in interiors for very specific purposes, very rarely and never spray can. Sometimes I will use a high end Matte clear for certain things like roll cages or dashboards to reduce reflection in the windshield. If you decide to use a clear in a can be sure you don't spray it in high humidity or it may "blush" giving your new finish a whitish frosted appearance. 

For plastic repair on high end repairs/restoration projects. If you're repairing hard plastics fixing holes, cracks, gouges the 3M 5885 works well and SEM makes texture paints you can mimic the original texture with by experimenting with spray technique before you shoot the actual parts. If the pieces were previously painted/dyed, soda blasting can be done and if you're very careful sandblasting can also be done on many hard plastics.

Here's an example of restoring 50 YO door panels.

The panels had been screwed to the door with sheetrock screws in random places which needed to be repaired and had been spray can painted/dyed a couple times previously but as you can see in the pic it flaked off due to chemicals not cleaned well before paint. I cleaned them before doing anything else then soda blasted them, then repaired, then applied texture, then shot them in white PPG DBI  to match the leather upholstery.

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