body and interior Need Painting Tips...for Center Console.

[jrhone]

I am jet about ready to paint my center console.  I want a perfectly smooth glossy black finish.  My plan is to use bondo and primer and get a perfectly smooth surface.  I was hoping I can achieve this with rattle can paints.  Don't have a lot of experience with painting so any tips or advice on getting this painted and getting a smooth glossy finish?  Here is a pic of things so far.  What I plan on painting is the center section of the console where the gauges and radio will mount as well as the shifter surround piece.  

 

 

 

[John_in_VA]

perfectly smooth glossy black finish = lacquer from a gun.

[gaius]

my 2 cents

how about making it match the dash satin black with texture, gloss black is really unforgiving, this can bee done with a rattle can.

this is what i used when i refurbished my dash, minus filler and prep, witch i do not think you need for this project.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PL074S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PL24M6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

gaius

[esty]

my 2 cents

how about making it match the dash satin black with texture

me too

[Dev02]

Since you made it out of wood (really nice looking BTW) why not use wood filler? It might just be that I've done a lot more woodwork than bondo repairs, but it seems like it would be much easier, cost less and give the same results (assuming good prep and products). Unless you need the bondo for the surround...?

 

If you want smooth and glossy I'd go with lacquer as John suggests, but I have used it from a can with a directional sprayer (built in tip) with great results.

 

My experience was that to get the proper results I needed to prime/sand/prime/sand untill it was perfectly smooth and did not have any spots without primer; then to spray medium coats (looked wet but no runs) and sand inbetween with finer and finer steel wool, cleaning with a tack cloth in-between. You can do many really light coats but that has always left 'pebbling' for me, even with lots of them and lots of sanding. And of course really thick coats develop runs or sags.

 

Also, I have used a couple coats of clear over that to give it a deeper look. Of course this was all wood working projects; I've yet to do a console.

 

The biggest trick with painting, like most everything else, is how good the prep is.

[John_in_VA]

This was in the paper this week - how to get a super-glossy front door.  Some tips may apply here:

 

My search led me straight to the streets of Georgetown, where colorful, glossy front doors are plentiful, many of them painted by Eric Linkins of Linkins Custom Painting. Linkins, who paints entire houses (both interior and exterior), is often contacted to repaint front doors only. “I have one client who calls me every other year to change the color of her front door,” he says. It’s not just the color, but also the mirror-like finish that gives Linkins’s doors what he calls their “wow factor.” Such a lacquered sheen is not easy to achieve. It takes patience, skill and the best materials available. Linkins uses only oil-based paints (his favorite are those from Fine Paints of Europe, Fine Paints of Europe and he typically spends about five days working on a door (12-18 hours of labor, the rest is drying time between layers). The process involves first rough-sanding the door then priming it with an oil primer.

 

Once dry, the door gets skim-coated with Swedish Putty, an oil-based high-performance spackle, which then gets sanded with a fine-grit paper (220 or finer) until the surface shines like a sheet of glass. The door then gets painted with several coats of paint (Linkins uses Fine Paints of Europe’s Hollandlac Brilliant Enamel), polishing between coats, but not after the final coat. Building up the mirror-like finish takes layers. Linkins typically applies five thin layers of paint or a minimum of three if he uses a tinted primer. In a perfect world, Linkins says, he would remove the door from its hinges, strip it and paint it horizontally across two sawhorses and then let it dry vertically, but 99 percent of the doors he paints are already installed. Rather than remove the door, he removes only the weather stripping, which leaves a quarter-inch gap around the door, enough to close it between coats of paint. He also creates a temporary tent around the door to keep dust and debris away. Linkins charges around $600 for his craft, not including materials.

 

John Learnard of Coloralchemist in Arlington takes a bit of a different approach. Learnard specializes in historic restoration and typically works on 100-plus-year-old homes. He almost always removes the door he is working on and puts up a temporary barricade. Then, he puts the door in a strip tank to remove all old paint and he sends the hardware out to be polished. He stresses the importance of removing everything because “a high-gloss finish has to be flawless in preparation because the finish shows everything.” Once the door is stripped, Learnard and his team follow a process similar to Linkins’s, applying coat after coat of paint, always with a brush, never with a roller (Learnard says there is a major difference between paint that is rolled and paint that is hand-brushed — hand-brushed is a lot smoother).

 

Learnard also stresses the importance of materials. He, too, prefers Fine Paints of Europe to get the best high-gloss finish and he only uses hand-made ox ear-hair brushes from Corona. Learnard’s prices are significantly higher, approximately $3,500 to restore a historic door or $1,800 to paint a new door.

 

But say you can’t afford to hire Linkins or Learnard to paint your front door and/or you are averse to using oil-based paint. Can you still get the shiny look of a London door? Sort of. Ben Stillwell, a Lowe’s associate, says that to get the very shiny lacquered look, you really do have to use oil-based paint, but he notes that there have been tremendous improvements in latex paint, including the addition of UV protection to prevent fading. He also stresses the ease of use and cleanup of latex paint compared to oil-based, which for the novice painter is key.

 

For the DIYer, Stillwell says to start with a bonding primer, which, unlike latex primers, is sandable so you can buff out any lines or inconsistencies. Apply several coats of the bonding primer, drying and sanding with a 180- or 220-grit paper between layers. Apply enough layers of primer to color the grain of the wood. If your final paint color is dark, then Stillwell recommends tinting the bonding primer a light gray (just add black paint) because it balances light absorption so that you get better color with fewer coats of paint. Once your final coat of primer has dried, apply several coats of semigloss latex paint, drying between each. For a shiny finish, Stillwell suggests applying a couple of coats of Polycrylic in a gloss finish and lightly sanding between coats with a 220-grit paper to remove any particles of dust that may have settled on the wet surface.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/the-secret-to-getting-a-shiny-painted-door/2014/08/06/d0b63948-1768-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html

 

[nbcbird]

As Dev02 said, you will spend a lot of time preparing the wood to eliminate the appearance of wood grain in the final finish (check out "french polish" in furniture refinishing).  A satin (or semi-gloss) finish is more appropriate for the 2002 and will wear much better than a glossy one. Duplicolor makes a rattle can in black semi-gloss.  Another option would be to cover the console with black vinyl (as the original).  Are the sides of your console from an original--can't tell from the pic.  And I wouldn't pay much attention to the details of painting a door when considering the finish of your console (as in using oil-base paints, applying with a brush, etc. etc.). 

[gaius]

The biggest trick with painting, like most everything else, is how good the prep is.

 

 

 

This was in the paper this week - how to get a super-glossy front door.  Some tips may apply here:

 

these guys make my point, gloss is a lot of work.

 

my personal  preference would be to use a hard wood, and an oil finish. teak is nice, and will hold up to the heat. i have some Madagascar rosewood, it is a purple black color. but at 60.00 a bord ft. that would be expenseve.

Edited August 8, 2014 by gaius

[Dev02]

my personal  preference would be to use a hard wood, and an oil finish. teak is nice, and will hold up to the heat.

 

+1!

 

i have some Madagascar rosewood...

 

Drool! I have some Bloodwood that would be fun to put in... never thought about it till now.

[gaius]

Drool! I have some Bloodwood that would be fun to put in... never thought about it till now.

 

i also have 20 or so planks of red cedar cut about 5/8 i have been saving for kick panels (doors) and a console (from hurricane Elana 1985) but am not sure how it will hold up to the heat.

[jrhone]

Nice stuff guys. I'm on my second pass of bondo and primer and I am almost there as far as perfectly smooth. Here are pics so far.

I am thinking smooth gloss because this was a popular thing in the Porsche world and I had it done on my Porsche 996.

[esty]

careful that the flex in the face panel doesn't crack all the work you're doing...there's not much material around the radio, bottom opening spaces...wood moves, expands, contracts with hot/cold and humidity

[jrhone]

thanks esty, I soaked and bent the wood before hand to that angle.  The radio will be fully supported from the rear so as not to put and stress on the faceplate.

 

Here is a pic of the porsche center console...obviously different, but where its silver, I was going for the gloss black.  

 

[brendang2000]

Sorry if I'm butting in to this thread, but it has a picture of the shifter surround I need. Does anybody know what the part number is for that exact piece, RealOEM isn't all that clear. You can reach me at brendang2000@gmail or pm me.

Also, most automotive paint shops will mix any color paint and put into an aerosol can for little $, they charged me $15 for a color match of Inca. I've had good luck with my interior areas when I didn't want to spend the big bucks for a quart of base on areas rarely seen. Beats the hell out of Krylon:)

Console looks great!!!

[Mike Self]

Some years ago I made a much smaller wood base for a three gauge pod that's mounted atop my dash, replacing the Fasten Seat Belts sign.  To get it nice and smooth so it didn't look like wood, I simply gave it several coats of spray can grey primer, then finished off with Krylon semi-gloss black to match the dashboard's sheen.  Looks great, but I do have to repaint it every 4-5 years as it's exposed to a lot of sunlight there atop the dash. 

 

On your console, I'd be leery of getting the filler/primer/paint too thick, as the car vibrates and flexes, and the thicker the coating, the better chance of it cracking.  Wood expands and contracts with heat and humidity too.   Your design and fabrication look great, BTW.  Be sure and post the finished product.

 

cheers

mike