How to get that cracked vinyl look??

[bangandow 10+ year member]

A friend and I are planning on doing our first fiberglass work today and we're gonna try to match the finish to the interior of his car. He drives a volvo with a black interior that has this cracked plastic/vinyl look to it... can't really think of any other way to describe it.

Anyways, does anyone know of a way to recreate this kind of finish?

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[jmanpc 5,000+ posts]

reupholster his car to match the box //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[Railrocker 10+ year member]

Buy some vinyl?

 

[bangandow 10+ year member]

I guess cracked vinyl isn't the best description... it's plastic... and cracked looking... when I get over there I'll get a picture of it.

 

[ramos 5,000+ posts]

Sound like your gonna either need vinyl , or sem texture spray //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[jdc753 10+ year member]

I guess cracked vinyl isn't the best description... it's plastic... and cracked looking... when I get over there I'll get a picture of it.

I'm not exactly sure what you are describing, I may be interested in the same topic though. Could it maybe be something like leather grained ABS plastic maybe, thats pretty common for factory interior panels, if so I think you can buy vinyl that has the grain in it. Or could it just be older and have "cracks" or wrinkles in it from wear/tear? I have never been a big fan of the smooth as glass look, at least when trying to match an interior, I like the grain that most factory pieces have. I'm thinking you may need to buy some vinyl to cover your fiberglass, should be able to find it in black if not I'm sure you can find some dye to change it to black.

Could it be something like this... (sorry for taking wild guesses)

Its just a pic of a seat in a Volvo 850 looks to have some "wrinkles" or "cracks" in it

 

[bangandow 10+ year member]

Here's a couple pics of the piece we're glassing onto... we're making a gauge pod and a glossy finish would just look wrong as the rest of the interior has the same texture as this piece.

Any advice is much appreciated... vinyl definitely isn't an option, so I was wondering more if anyone knew of any painting techniques... maybe sponging it with clumps of saran wrap while paint is wet?

 

[jdc753 10+ year member]

I would be very interested in finding out a proper proceedure to reproduce similar things like that. I have been contemplating the same problem for a while and the only thing I can really think of would be to somehow make a negative of that piece and then use it later as a stamp of some sort to your final product. Maybe some sort of gel or rubber could be used to make a fairly flexible "stamp" of a decent sized area of the original and then used to replicate the texture to your new product.

I hope you can come up with a way to recreate that finish onto the fiberglass, I would be very interested to know how it can be done as well. Good Luck, hopefully someone with some more custom fabbing experience can post.

 

[Paul73 10+ year member]

Ha ha your friend must have a mid 80's 740 huh? Those look like door pockets, he's lucky they aren't busted all to hell lol. Check PE and see if they have any vinyl that comes close.

 

[maxxguy1 10+ year member]

you can get that look with a rag wet with paint

 

[azbass 5,000+ posts]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif you can buy different patterns of vinyl that will match best to your car interior.

i did the same in my car.

 

[pitbull12888]

i used to work for leather magic, they have the grani pattern you will need, youll have to contact them then send in a sample... Tell them there fellow worker michael reccomended them to u //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

http://www.leathermagic.com

 

[bangandow 10+ year member]

Thanks, pitbull, but this isn't for my car and the guy who I'm doing this for isn't interested enough in factory matching to warrant leather... plus, a leather piece in an otherwise plastic dash would look a bit too odd to warrant the cost. Thanks for the help though.

My friend suggested the saran wrap idea I mentioned above... but then again, he has as much experience with this as I do... anyone know if that'll work?

 

[pitbull12888]

ok i just thought u were tryin to get the stock grain pattern back in it or somethin like that

 

[dbornotdb 10+ year member]

It was mentioned already. SEM texture spray.

Depending on how far you hold it from the part, the texture will vary.