For years I had a whole bunch of cans on black plasti dip and never really had any use for them. Then I took a closer look at how the f54 looks with the side reflectors in the arches and I realized how much I disliked them.
Recently I had been talking to another member who was looking into getting euro arches without the reflectors on each corner. It totally would have cleaned up the look but it probably would have ran me upwards of $400 for everything needed. So I decided to take out one of those cans and tried to plasti dip them myself. Prior to starting the project, I watched a few tutorials, with this one being one o the better ones...

DISCLAIMER: this was my first time using plasti dip and am very happy with how it turned out. I’ll outline the steps I used but do not take responsibility for any damage done if someone else tries it out.

here it’s goes...
1. I let the can sit in my bathroom sink full of warm water for about 15 minutes. This is to ensure that the stream of spray is even and doesn’t bubble up. It was a cool day out (~45 degrees).
2. I masked of each reflector to ensure there wasn’t much, is any overspray getting onto the paint. I used regular painters tape and thin blade to cut out the out line of the reflector underneath.
3. I quickly ran an alcohol wipe over each reflector just to the spray had as clean of a surface as possible to bind with the plastic (no scuffing with sandpaper was needed like with other spray paints).
4. After I warmed up the can I did 5 coats of plasti dip. With each coat i preformed 8 quick passes of spray and gave about 10 minutes in between each coat to allow for proper drying.
5. While applying the 4th coat I noticed I began to come out a little bubbly. I warmed the van up in the sink again for a few minutes and when I took it out I sprayed what was in the nozzle out elsewhere to get rid of any residual bubbling spray left inside.
6. After the 5th coat I let it dry for a few more minutes and then gently peeled off the masking tape. I kept the blade near by in case i needed to get rid of any spray that may have dried on the tape so that it didn’t pull the whole thing off.

results: all in all, I’m officially a believer in plastidip. I’d probably give my work an 9 out of 10, with 10 being the $400 euro arches.

 

1. This is what my masking job looked like before getting started. While I was masking everything off I had the can warming up in the sink.

2. This picture was taken after the second coat dried, and just before I applied the 3rd.

3. This picture was taken after the 3rd coat dried and just before I applied the 4th.

4. This is the final result after I let the 5th coat dry, removed the masking tape and cleaned the arch with a Mother's vinyl/ plastic cleaner. I'm really happy with how it matches the rest of the plastic.

5. Before and After- really happy i decided to tackle this.



Feel free to ask any questions and I'll try to answer as best as I can!

 

 

Does any light come through the plasti-dip at night or is all dark?

 

5 coats was enough to make it totally opaque.

 

Looks good