PlastiDip anyone?

ZOO wrote: If you used three gallons, as it appears the poster did for his FD RX7, I suspect it would be the weight of those three gallons. Not insignificant, but not statistically significant either as a percentage of the weight if the car.

Yeah, and it would actually be less than that, because of the volatiles that evaporate out, leaving just the solids. We just need to know what percentage is solids. At a guess, I could see three gallons of plasti-dip adding 25-30 pounds to the weight of the car.

Fun fact - the dry film weight of the paint on a C-5 Galaxy weighs as much as the takeoff weight of not 1 but 2 J-3 Cubs.

I used 1.5 gal on the whole car. I don't know the ratio of solids to VOCs in the pre-mixed gallons but I can say for sure when you peel the dried product off a panel, it's feather-light.

Lets assume a vehicle has 70s-rific lacquer paint that's cracked, chipping off, wrinkled. I'd venture a guess that most of said paint would need to be removed before PlastiDip could be applied. So... what are the advantages/disadvantages of using PlastiDip rather than traditional paint, if the prep work is the same?

my question is this: ive got a couple of cars with VERY nice paint. base clear. i would like to play with some blackout treatments and stripes, maybe even two tones. i like the concept of the plastidip.

how hard is it to actually remove? what does it do to great paint underneath? in other words, what can of worms am i opening even considering this? the two cars in question are the 70 duster and 97 acr in the builds sections.

From the sample photos I've seen, it seems to hide imperfections a bit. Also if you change your mind, simply peel it off and spray a different color. Also I've seen a few friends do emblems, and peel off around them on the paint and seems to peel pretty easily.

I'm going to give it a go on some emblems this week or weekend. Rims eventually, when I finally decide!

Warren v wrote:

ZOO wrote: I remember when NASA stopped painting the main tank on the shuttle rockets. I think the weight savings was in the multiple tons . . .

According to one of my professors that was involved with the shuttle, it was around 600 lbs and saved around $15k in mid-1980's money. The final tank was something like 16,000 lighter than the first one. The reason they painted it in the first place was to protect the insulation foam from UV light exposure during transportation and sitting on the pad. It wasn't for aesthetics.

I often wondered of the paint wouldn't have kept the foam from falling off and breaking tiles on the shuttle

I'm thinking about doing this to my 'rolla. It would save so, so many dollars and would be easy to fix.

What if you wanted something more permanent? (....I'm thinking of my "seal the inside and underside of a locost" idea.) I was thinking about truck bed liner or one of plastidip's heavy duty industrial coatings.

What would be the most durable?

linex will be way more durable than plastidip. You can't peel lineX off stuff and they can spray it on as thick as you like. there are now a variety of DIY options and I've seen many used. the spray on ones all seem a lot better than the roll on ones, but just seems to me like none of them are quite the quality of a real spray in lineX one.

A lot of the the guys on my old ford truck forum get the bottom of their cabs/beds linex'd after they do all their body work. durable rustproofing... pretty affordable too when you consider the cost of special underbody sealing products...

I also forgot another advantage would be no primer needed or anything else like painting. Just wash the car and spray the rubber!
(And I'm just guessing but the dip is probably cheaper than paint also.)

Hmmm, this could be the answer to my faded Maaco'ed black bumpers on my MR2.

Jerry - I vote bright red or orange for those wheels. Might as well have fun.

JoeyM wrote: What if you wanted something more permanent? (....I'm thinking of my "seal the inside and underside of a locost" idea.) I was thinking about truck bed liner or one of plastidip's heavy duty industrial coatings. What would be the most durable?

Beware of undercoatings, at least the stuff sold in the spray cans. Some (maybe most) of that stuff never really "dries." That's the point actually, that it stays slighly soft in order to absorb noise and rock impacts. But as "paint" it's going to suck eggs.

andrave wrote: linex will be way more durable than plastidip. You can't peel lineX off stuff and they can spray it on as thick as you like. there are now a variety of DIY options and I've seen many used. the spray on ones all seem a lot better than the roll on ones, but just seems to me like none of them are quite the quality of a real spray in lineX one. A lot of the the guys on my old ford truck forum get the bottom of their cabs/beds linex'd after they do all their body work. durable rustproofing... pretty affordable too when you consider the cost of special underbody sealing products...

If you line x a race car, it seems like it would add a ton of weight. I would line x an entire rockcrawler but the plastidip seems like a good texture, price and weight for a track car.

I have been toying with the idea of plastidipping my car for the winter. Would it add a protective layer? Or would it just let moisture in between the paint and the dip? These are the pressing questions.

That's something I've been thinking about as well, it's rainy and wet for half the year and sometimes I have to wade the car up to the rockers. Anyone see any signs of water being able to seep under the plasti-dip?

Once it's dry when you apply it and none gets in, it should be fine.

Matt B wrote: Jerry - I vote bright red or orange for those wheels. Might as well have fun.

I remembered today that I ordered the safety orange long sleeve SCCA shirt a few weeks ago, so I'm 99% decided to go Blaze Orange.

No water getting in under the dip. I have one spot under the passenger side rear window, where a pin is for attaching a piece of trim, that was rusted almost all the way through. I didn't put the dip on very thick there and because that's where the rain settles I have a rusty stain running down the quarter panel, but the water is not getting under the dip. I just missed that spot with a couple coats and can still see bare metal around the pin.

The main reason for me doing it was to protect my bodywork through the winter. Because primer over bare metal is not a good moisture barrier.

I'm going to pull it off in the spring to continue my bodywork. If I fail to get it painted before next winter I'm going to dip it again to protect it through next winter as well.

JohninKansas; For me it was to protect the bodywork on my daily driver through the winter. And to get an Idea if I wanted to paint it white when I'm done with the extensive rust eradication.

I'm going to paint it black.

JoeyM wrote: What if you wanted something more permanent? (....I'm thinking of my "seal the inside and underside of a locost" idea.) I was thinking about truck bed liner or one of plastidip's heavy duty industrial coatings. What would be the most durable?

crankwalk wrote:

andrave wrote: A lot of the the guys on my old ford truck forum get the bottom of their cabs/beds linex'd after they do all their body work. durable rustproofing... pretty affordable too when you consider the cost of special underbody sealing products...

If you line x a race car, it seems like it would add a ton of weight. I would line x an entire rockcrawler but the plastidip seems like a good texture, price and weight for a track car.

The extra weight would not be a big deal. The car in question - my 1932 datsun replica - may use a locost-ish chassis, but it will probably spend more time driving on public roads and sitting at car shows than it will autocrossing.

they can spray line x at any thickness you want it at. I've seen entire vehicles coated in a thin coating like paint.

Thanks. That's good to know.

Anybody have any pictures of full car with the gunmetal with metallic mixed in from a gun? All the rattle can metallic looks uneven on big surfaces. Thanks

Finally tested on an emblem. Next up, emblems on the back. Then finally the rims on the MR2!

looks nice

Here's a plastidip question for the masses:

I want to plastidip a set of wheel metallic bronze. They don't make that. I could get gunmetal and yellow and try to mix them, but A) I wonder about the overtones, and B) I don't have a compressor and gun to shoot it with.

They have plastidip "enhancer" gold metallicizer, which can be sprayed over a base coat. Does anybody know if the enhancers can be sprayed over regular paint? The wheels are already kind of gunmetal grey factory finish, so I thought a light even coat of the gold might make a decent bronze color.

Or should I just rattle can them bronze with regular paint? They will be brand new wheels, so I kind of hate to do something I can't easily undo.

Duke wrote: They have plastidip "enhancer" gold metallicizer, which can be sprayed over a base coat. Does anybody know if the enhancers can be sprayed over regular paint? The wheels are already kind of gunmetal grey factory finish, so I thought a light even coat of the gold might make a decent bronze color.

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that if you don't spray this stuff on thick enough, peeling it is not as easy as it should be.

Since you brought this question to the top, has anyone used this inside the engine bay? My engine is out and I'd like to get rid of some of the scratches in the painted firewall. Rather than trying to match the existing color (black), I thought black plastidip might be effective, plus slightly more resistant to damage. Any experience?