Who's going to volunteer as tribute?

I will. My red hard top needs to be Emerald green or black.

LOL, i wonder how that looks in person. Looks nice in the video.

You guys should really reevaluate your personal taste. that shit looks awful.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. From the standpoint of "looks good", i mean it looks pretty good in the video for what it is.

Would i ever put that on anything I own? Hell no. Not unless I pick up a 90's impala and put some 33" wheels on it :bowrofl:

What if my miata has 32s? You think I could pull it off?

If you do plastidip, make sure you mask the shit out of everything that doesn't get a thick coat. Overspray will not come off. It will with acetone, but then you damage the clear coat/paint with the acetone.

I put it on my 16" winter wheels on my Jetta and it has help up for an entire year and some seriously scrubbing. I was pretty impressed. The second a hard edge hits it though, it'll scrape it off in a heartbeat.

Xylene is where it's at for taking care of overspray, fixing edges and repairing imperfections in dip. I used it to fix the edges when I dipped my miata, it's the best thinner for dip, it just rubs dip clean off. I don't think it hurts car paint, but don't take my word for it, I used it on the third brake light, window moldings, stuff like that.

As far as how long dip lasts, I'm going on 2 years on 2 dip jobs. I started off green, then went black. I just sprayed one over the other with no issues. It cures right on top. It'll make it less difficult to peel in the end because it's pretty think at this point. I'm planning on doing navy blue soon, possibly with pearlizer or maybe with a bit of black tint. Probably both.

I just use a cloth and rub off overspray. Not too difficult to do.

My brother has successfully convinced me to dip my bmw. He has probably watched every plastidip video on the interwebs. From what I've seen, it can look awesome. I'm pretty excited, but have my doubts. Sounds like there are definitely tricks to make it look better.

What color? I feel like you can make plastidip look great in pictures but in person I don't think you will be impressed.

Red and Black, over red paint.

I completely agree, I wanted to do it myself until I saw a few cars in person.

I have had pretty good success with dipping pieces of my bike and different trim pieces on various cars. Gonna dip my miata as soon as I'm done with the turbo kit

Request to those that dipped their hard top:

Can you please post pictures?

Even more awesome would be pictures of someone that dipped the top and the a pillars making the car sort of a "two tone".

I keep googling for pictures, and only found a handful so far.


*EDIT: my biggest concern about dipping something like a top or even a whole car is unevenness or patchiness.

Like so:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1417206752

That patchiness is directly related to the idiot applying it. If you take your time, prep it, and apply it, it will look better than most of the remaining paint. (At least on my 96)

What do you mean by prep? As far as I know you're just supposed to wash the surface and make sure its dry and dirt free. They also have the prep stuff on dipyourcar but I don't think its anything fancy.

And yes, I'm guessing user error on that one, but that's kinda why I want to see more pictures of light reflecting off plastidipped surfaces to make sure it doesn't look patchy or stupid.

For me, best results were attained by detailing the surface first. (Wash, dry, clay bar, iron-x ect), otherwise the plasti dip layers will build up on the impurities, and become quite noticeable.

Second in order of importance is learning how to mask the car in regards to plasti dip. It is different from normal masking. (Special consideration on how the tape is going to be removed after the dip has dried)

Third is the application of the plasti dip. If using aerosol cans, I've found the best practice to be to lay it on quite thick, from no more than 6"away, and in "wet" coats. If you follow the directions, and "dust" it on, it gets a sandpaper like finish, versus a smooth vynil like finish if applied wet.

If using the sprayer, then there are a lot more variables to consider. But to keep it generic: lay down two to three dusty layers, then apply the finish layer last. Do note that the plasti dip meant for sprayers is a different compound from the aerosol cans.

It will take one or two applications to get it right.

And being 100% honest, I learned more technique from doing smaller items, than trying to do my hardtop. My first attempt at my hardtop sucked! After doing five shift knobs, and experienceing the difference that applying techniques makes, I was much more capable of producing a better finish


Edit: most of the Orange peel looks are from the wrong application technique. Shit you not, my 96 looks better at two feet away than it did with factory paint. When I get home I'll try to drum up some photos.

Good feedback, thanks for that, props given.
Can you elaborate on the "masking off different" comment?

I think it's the dipyourcar site that sells improved flow nozzles, basically for the goal of laying thick coats like mentioned above. It's got a lot wider pattern, and a lot denser spray so you can lay it on from further back. It's faster, so you can get the next coat down before it starts to tack too much.

It's possible to get it looking uniform with the "stock" nozzles, but it's way easy to zebra-stripe between thick and thin sandpaper spots.

Well, I can try. For this example, lets use the hardtop as a reference.

When you apply the tape to the door seals, you would want to stick the tape as far up the seal as possible ,(up meaning as close to the top), while still having the rolled edge of the top visible. Basically, you don't want to try to remove the tape if it's been plasti dipped. Even if you try to cut the transfer layer (dip spray that's adhered to both the top and your masking tape), then the whole dip is compromised. the edges will look like bacon, and the dip will peel itself as you drive.


Another word of caution, overspray that gets on any rubber seal is an absolute bitch to remove. If you are going to have a spot that gets overspray, then make sure you apply enough coats of overspray so that you can peel it all.

When removing the overspray, pull in perpendicular directions from your hardtop. So if removing overspray on the rear window, starting at the top, pull the overspray straight down, then left/right along the window edge, ect.

The biggest challenge is getting the tape off without fucking up the rest.

If you have access to a spare door, it made a great learning tool. Practice taping off the door/Window seals, and practice removal.

ALSO, and this cannot be stressed enough, make sure you lay down a MINIMUM of six layers, otherwise you will hate life when you try to remove it.

And it doesn't matter if you lay down the coats twenty minutes apart, or twenty hours. As you lay down a new layer, it re-liquefies the layer beneath it. Its far more important to lay down quality coats, one at a time.

Here is my input to the Plasti Dip thread.

I used a few items:

1 gallon black cherry RDS (had it, just wanted to use it up) ($60)
1 gallon matte black RDS ($55)
1 gallon matte clear RDS ($60)
1 gallon glossifier RDS ($65)
100grams RL-71 pearl ($100)

I used an Earlex 3900 sprayer from Lowes ($118).
Tape and mil plastic ($20)

I already had the sprayer, mil plastic, and black cherry and matte clear RDS. The prep work took the longest. I put 2 light coats of the black cherry followed by 3 good coats of matte black. I mixed 3/4 matte clear with the whole gal of glossifier and the pearls. I put 3 medium coats of the pearl on, the first was mostly a detail coat by trying to get all the hard areas first. I'm happy with it, the whole start to finish time involved was about 6 hrs.

That looks really good. I'm thinking of using pearl on my Subaru when I dip it this summer

That actually looks decent when done right.

How is the texture?

Wow, I don't hate that color as much as I thought I would. I also feel like those colors are 90's ricer... but looking at your car I have to say nice job.

I always go back and forth on vinyl and dip. I know I won't be able to pay to paint my car for a few years (another baby on the way). So something may happen this summer.

The texture is very smooth. I took my time and did it right. I'll change colors again this summer I think, I wanted a bold color flipping pearl, this is definitely bold. It's fun to do, relatively cheap and if I don't like it, I peal it off. I did mess up on the rear bumper panel, I just removed it and sprayed it again. It came off clean and easy. I'll upload a few more pics.

more pics:

You're going to cause accidents going that bold :giggle:

This came out great, mad props sir :party:

Thank you. I get questions and comments just about every time I drive it.

I came in here expecting the worst, but bravo, this is very impressive

Thank you, I'm happy with it. I may do a different color next summer.

welp, my 1st try at plastidipping the hardtop with rattle cans pretty much failed lol

https://www.miataturbo.net/build-thr...9/#post1203200

learned a few things though

I dipped my hardtop a while back with the spray cans, and it turned out pretty well. Myself and a friend set it up on top of a large trash can so we could walk around it easily and tag-teamed it with 2 cans at once, we used a total of 6 cans on the hardtop. I pulled the masking tape off when it was still a little wet, but I had one small spot where it still pulled up at the top center of the back window. You can see where I went back and blasted it with dip again to get it to lay back down on the top. Six cans of plastidip ended up netting me a $400 profit when I went to sell the top. I paid $700 for it with faded red paint and sold it to a yoloswag kid for $1100 even after telling him it had faded red paint under the dip.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1423153109
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1423153109

Looks like leaving it matt finish helps.

We've done a few cars, learning as we go. Seems like rattle can is more difficult to get a good spray. Nozzle gets clogged and starts spraying drips, finger/thumb gets pretty tired after a while, ambient temp/temp of the can sometimes gives different results. This is the latest one we did. The original dip on the hood was never perfect so we peeled it before doing the new color. Details are in YouTube description. Took 5 hrs or so to do. The original grey has been on there for over a year and had no signs of deterioration, it was still good to paint over. Only areas that "wear" are around the handles and under the door where your foot will sometimes hit getting in/out of the car.


The only bad experience we've had was with the matte clear over regular paint. Possible combination of not enough coats/florida sun/aftermarket paint job underneath, but it peeled like you were peeling off sunburnt skin. Small pieces, eventually used DYC's dip desolver and coated the majority of the car and used a pressure washer to assist. ClearCoat was ruined underneath, I wouldn't exactly blame the dip tho. Clearcoat was fine on the hood of the Lexus.

Bros, do you even redneck?
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1423168548

lol, yes tried that too. it worked "eh".

Ryan,
I used one of those. it takes the stress off the 1 finger, but is still a pain and when the knob clogs it drips even more with that ting cause of all the stuff around the knob

Owen,
I don't know the quality of yours obviously, but mine looks just as good as yours from that far away using a low quality camera. Up close it looks like doo-doo.

I guess my standards for this stuff were way too high. Not sure why I expected a near-paint like finish.