How-to: Repaint Automotive Plastics

[Tristin]

So youre tired of your bish looking like crap. What are you to do? Well, you can try repainting all the plastic pieces. Im going to describe this technique using GL tail lights, but this can be applied to anything thats plastic with minor changes in the procedure.

 

Supplies:

1. Plastic pieces (duh)

2. Plastic primer

3. Paint

4. Masking supplies (painters tape, butchers paper, plastic film, etc.)

5. Cleaning supplies (non-conttonous wipes, cleaning solution, etc.)

6. Safety equipment... #1 priority, but #6 on the list :shock:

 

NOTE: ANY PAINTING SHOULD BE DONE OUTSIDE AND IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA. PAINT FUMES CAN NOT ONLY BE UNHEALTHY, BUT ALSO FLAMMABLE. PLEASE USE ALL SAFETY AND WARNING PRECAUTIONS OUTLINED ON THE LABEL OF YOUR PAINT.

 

This is what were trying to do:

 

 

(Before vs. After)

 

As you can see we go from crappy grey weathered plastic to OEM looking fresh black. Legit.

 

 

 

*You can click on the images for larger versions*

 

Step 1- Take your plastic plastic pieces and fully dissemble them. Remove any brackets, emblems, screws, anything thats not the actual plastic you want painted.

 

 

 

Step 2. Clean all of your parts thoroughly. You only want to paint the plastic, not the crap stuck to it. Grease, dust, dirt, stickers, or anything is just going to mess up your work. Your final paint job is only as good as your prep-work. Any of the painters or autobody guys on here can attest to that fact. Take your time on this step... other than wait time between coats, this should be your longest step.

 

Step 3. There may be areas of your plastic that you do not want to paint or maybe you want it a different color. For this piece, there was a trim area outlining the light bezel that I did not want black; I want it silver for accent like the original piece. For this I bought Frogtape which is a better Painters Tape (the blue tape with a mild adhesive). It sticks well, but when youre done with it, it easily peels away leaving no residue. I covered the silver trim in tape and cut it to size with a precision utility knife. I was on the hunt for a smaller sized tape so that I did not have to cut at all, but I could only find 24mm. I know they make smaller sized tape for autobody applications but I did not have access to that.

 

 

 

 

Step 4. Snack time! After all the cleaning, pre-work, masking etc. I was starving. So I stopped to have a snack. Its important to get all your nutrients and stay hydrated.

 

 

 

Step 5. To make sure that your paint sticks to your plastic and doesnt just run, use plastic primer. Make sure you do a couple coats according to the directions printed on the label. Make sure they are good clean coats. You dont need thick coats but enough to tack up and have the paint stick.

 

 

Step 6. Paint. Its basically the Step 5, but according to the directions on the paint can instead of the primer can.

 

Step 7. Once the paint has dried carefully (read: CAREFULLY!) peel away your tape. I personally used my precision utility knife and pried up a corner of the tape. Once the corner was up, I slowly but surely peeled it back. If you go quickly, you have the potential to peel some of the paint along with it; you dont want that.

 

 

 

Step 8. Clean up your pieces. There may be little flecks of tape or loose random materials on in/on your paint. Gently pick them off the insure a clean job.

 

Step 9. Now if you have mutiple colors to spray, reverse mask the area you want.

 

 

 

Step 10. Repeat Steps 6-8 for the second color.

 

Step 11. ???

 

Step 12. Profit

 

[ggzilla]

wow, nice. I think I could even do that. What paint did you use for the black? Vinyl paint? Flat black?

[Tristin]

I used a fine textured satin black. I figured it would blend well with the already texted areas, and wouldnt look bad on the smooth areas. I didnt want to buy two cans and mask more than needed. Ill be using this same process for my dash soon.

[DatDoug]

They make a paint just for plastics its called "Fusion" It is the Bees Knees :cool:

[Tristin]

Yes they do Doug. They make all sorts of colors, textures, and finishes. I was thinking of one of these colors:

 

 

 

But I decided on black at the end.

[Big Schlink]

Have you been shopping at my home depot? lol

 

 

Looks good man, I wonder if the rattle can plastic paints have a flex agent in them? For harder interior plastics I don't see any problems.

[Lee R]

A+

 

:thumbup:

[nismo dr]

very nice :thumbup:

 

2 snaps in a z formation with a twist

 

[Tristin]

A+

 

:thumbup:

 

 

very nice :thumbup:

 

2 snaps in a z formation with a twist

 

 

Thanks a lot guys. It was a pretty long process to take pictures and I did each piece by piece. I live in an apartment and didnt have enough workspace to do all three pieces at the same time. I ended up not liking the color I used for the trim so Im going to respray everything black.

[Shagy]

valspar's plastic paint is really good too. Their "primer" is clear. I might have some before/after shots of my trucks switch trim I did.

[poopypants720]

Hmmm... What happened to all the pictures?

[datzenmike]

IPS Community banned them.

[Tristin]

Fixed.

[poopypants720]

beautiful! Thanks for this.... Gonna do most my interior likely... cant have just one lil part looking all new and the others looking faded, lol.