Project Boondoggle (or, so I went and bought a Z!)

[gwri8]

On February 8, 2016 at 11:56 PM, charliekwin said:

 

 

I've heard the expression "Two eggs in a Hanky" to describe the south end view of a north bound female, but baseballs…….That made me pause.  That is a picture that I didn't need painted in my mind.

[siteunseen]

2 hours ago, Patcon said:

TMI !!!

My eyes! my eyes!!!  

How about my scars?!?!

I got to be with him until about five years ago and that's all could think of.

[siteunseen]

1 hour ago, gwri8 said:

 

I've heard the expression "Two eggs in a Hanky" to describe the south end view of a north bound female, but baseballs…….That made me pause.  That is a picture that I didn't need painted in my mind.

During that week of painting I caught him playing grab a** with my sweet Grandmother while she was making the bed. 

I hope I inherited his libido.

[charliekwin]

No more putting it off...finally dealing with the interior panels.  I found a leather-textured vinyl made by Hexis that looked promising and ordered two yards of it, which should be enough to do all the interior panels in the rear hatch.  Thinking it would be an easy one (oops...) I started by doing the tail light piece this afternoon.

Step 1: clean.  I gave it a bath with Oxy-Clean and scrubbed with a green scuff pad; followed that with D101 all purpose cleaner, rinsed with water and then wiped with isopropyl alcohol.

Step 2: rewatch the Hexis training videos on YouTube for the third time and convince yourself this'll be a piece of cake.

Step 3: start trying to apply the vinyl and remember that applying this stuff is totally not a piece of cake.  I spent more than 3 hours doing just the tail light panel.  That's all I got done.

Step 4: admire your ...umm...handiwork?  A few pictures before getting in to some details.

Some takeaways from today's efforts:

Curves are tougher than they look and it does take some time to get a feel for working with the vinyl, but you do get more comfortable with it as you go.   I've wrapped some small interior bits before, but a long time ago and not enough to consider myself experienced.  I picked the tail light panel thinking it would be easy but inadvertently ended up picking probably one of the worst panels to start with.  The curves are deceptively tricky to deal with, and it's also large and awkward.

The convex curves on the outside edges gave me a ton of trouble and I never got them looking especially great.  Unfortunately, the repeated lifting/stretching/heating that I did to get those to look the way they do now seems to also have reduced the effectiveness of the adhesive on sections that were overly-futzed with.  So visible section like this are lifting, because I spent too much time trying to make sections that I now realize can't be seen look good.  Whoops! 

That said, the areas where I managed to apply it well came out really well!  I wasn't sure how much I'd like the look or feel, but both are very good and, IMO, appropriate for the car.  Will definitely continue on with the rest of the panels, which hopefully should be a bit easier to deal with.

[grannyknot]

That looks great, maybe you can lift that edge and smear a thin layer of adhesive in the curve where it's pulling away?

Did the vinyl as it's shrinking into place pull, bend or warp the panel in away way? This looks really promising, looking forward to the next piece.

Chris

[Captain Obvious]

Well thanks for stopping me before I started. I had been toying with the same idea of covering my interior plastic panels with vinyl, and the troubles you describe have given me second thoughts. It seems you've got way more experience with this sort of work than I have, and if it's giving you  issues, then I can only imagine what would happen if I were to try. It likely wouldn't be pretty at all.

If you come up with an alternative more stretchy forgiving material, or a foolproof "for dummies" method of working with what you purchased, that would be great. But if not... I think I might be shelving this project.

[charliekwin]

Summed up, I'd say the results are a 10 of 10.  The look and feel is exactly what I was hoping for.  I'd describe it as a slightly cheaper version of the G37 interior.  The vinyl didn't distort the panel at all, and actually give it more structure so it isn't so flimsy anymore.

My application was more like a 4 out of 10, though.  This part here:

I probably lifted, stretched and repositioned it 20+ times, which is tough on the adhesive.  Most of that was just to clean up the far outside curves, which can't even be seen.  The way to wrap complex curves is (somewhat counter-intuitively) to stretch the vinyl around them.  The Hexis material can stretch about 30% before it will lift, so even if I had hit this on the first shot, it probably wouldn't stick.  I should have trimmed along that green line instead.  Depending on how the rest of the panels go and how much I'm bothered by it, I may re-do this panel later.

If you could find an upholstery or wrapping company that would be willing to do the application for you, that might be ideal.  I'm considering that myself for the dashboard.  In any case, it cost $85 shipped for two yards of vinyl and it's totally reversible if you screw it up

[charliekwin]

Better results today doing the panel I should have started with yesterday.  The rear panel on the driver's side is curved, but only in one direction, so it's basically a flat piece.  30 minutes for this one, and it came out quite nice.  The toughest part is getting the sheet down flat so it doesn't wrinkle, but it's workable if you go slowly.

Did a little practice with some scraps on the tougher shapes, because I'm out of easy bits to wrap now!  

Panel looks good installed, except for the part that got nicked up on the hatch support.  Another entry in the What Did You Think Was Gonna Happen!? file.

Edited April 11, 2016 by charliekwin

[Captain Obvious]

Yeah... I think maybe I'll wait till you nail down the process and then send my panels to you.

Or, maybe that rear taillight panel is, in fact, the most difficult and the rest of them will be a breeze by comparison? Top of my priority list would be the dash, so I'm anxious to hear your results there.

[charliekwin]

That's a pretty solid plan, Cap.  Only flaw I see is sending the panels to me! 

None of the panels left look like they'll be especially easy.  The one that covers the vent tank has a lot of complex curves, the seat belt covers are convex and the window trim has tight inside corners to deal with.

I'm with you on the dash...this stuff would look great as a dashboard cover.  I want to take that project on as soon as I can.

[Captain Obvious]

So have you thought about using multiple pieces to cover a part and overlapping the edges a little for a lap joint?

That test piece you did on the corner of the taillight bulb access panel makes it look like the material you're working with is thin enough that you might be able to do a pretty good job of hiding seams like that. And on some of the parts (like that bulb access panel) you could even put the seams on the underside where they would be hidden in use. Unfortunately, I doubt that technique would work on the dash though as I don't know where you would hide seams.

What we really need is a large vacuum table, one of those big radiant heaters and an adhesive backed thermoplastic sheet. 

 

[sweatybetty]

looks nice.