Blue/gray to brown interior vinyl painting

503-Hill-Billy503-Hill-Billy Wagonist
in Bodywork & Cosmetic Modifications
I've got a brown wagon and have been hunting speaker pods for about 6 months. I've seen a million blue/gray ones sold. Does anyone have any experience with repainting or changing interior vinyl colors?

Comments

  • greenteagodgreenteagod Moderator
    With regard to any vinyl, you are going to be hard pressed to get any color match. Especially if you are going to anything other than black. You can really only go darker, and you usually have to go a good deal darker to hide any previous color.

    As far as the pods go, I would honestly just go with some spraypaint there. I have had very good results with the Krylon fusion paints. If you saw my mirror block off plate both the inside and out are painted with that. Just pop one of the caps off the rear struts access panel and take that in to the store with you and see what matches up best. I usually try to find a good complimentary color as a perfect match is near impossible.

    But that's what I do for any hard plastic items. For vinyl you would probably want to pull the pieces clean them exceptionally well and then give them a painting if you were going to do that, but it still won't look that great. The plastic is much more forgiving.

    Edit: in rereading your post you're just talking about the pods not doing any soft vinyl parts are you? Usually the hard plastic is some form of abs or possibly polycarbonate. In cars any vinyl bits will usually be the soft stuff with some foam behind it, like on the door panels and the squishy parts of the dash. I've not personally seen a speaker pod, but to me they look to be abs.
  • 503-Hill-Billy503-Hill-Billy Wagonist
    Well that would make a difference. Never seen one in person either. One on cl in Portland..... Thinking about it.
  • CharbCharb Administrator
    If you go to your auto paint store... they can actually color match your interior with a can of aerosol.

    Old Skool did a double-din for a guy and he grafted two center consoles together. I believe it's SEM paint he used. I've seen it in person, and you would have no idea. Granted, it's gonna look much better than your other scratched up pieces. But the color will be identical.

    I'll try and find a pic
  • greenteagodgreenteagod Moderator
    Yeah, it's a bit of a pipe dream project for me, but I have done a bit of ceramic and silicone mold work in the past. I want to get set up to do it again. Some of these parts are big but a lot are just simple two part molds, nothing intense. I'd like to mold and reproduce some parts.

    The random stuff like that, the speaker pods, mold the custom block off plate I made since those are harder to come by. Various little trim bits that wear out but there aren't all that many alternatives to find.

    Found some great tutorials on getting super clear lenses. But, it may just be a dream =D
  • therichisgoodtherichisgood New Wagonist
    Check out a company called Rit, they make crazy good dyes.
  • 503-Hill-Billy503-Hill-Billy Wagonist
    Awesome. Good info fellas.
  • greenteagodgreenteagod Moderator
    Charb wrote: »
    I believe it's SEM paint he used. I've seen it in person, and you would have no idea.

    SEM is good stuff. If you're going to paint it, get some of this like Charb said.
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