Interior trim paint

I was thinking about pulling the dash out next spring and replace the dash bezels with new parts as he chromeish looking trim on them are sort of worn.

While looking on ebay (which I do every night), I found this trim paint that might do the job.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&vxp=mtr&item=331070954919

So I bought it but prob won't attempt any more work on the 73 until the spring.

Hope this can help others.

I was thinking about pulling the dash out next spring and replace the dash bezels with new parts as he chromeish looking trim on them are sort of worn.

While looking on ebay (which I do every night), I found this trim paint that might do the job.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&vxp=mtr&item=331070954919

So I bought it but prob won't attempt any more work on the 73 until the spring.

Hope this can help others.

Click to expand...

I've tried a few different paint pens on previous cars I've had. While they definitely looked better than the old chipped up chrome or painted over black, or prevailing color scheme, none of them matched the brilliance of the original chrome plating. In the end I broke down and bought new dash panels.

I will say that I've never used the particular brand that you show in your ebay link. If it works better than the others I've tried, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results.

Pat

I picked up some of this stuff from Lowes and test-painted a scrap piece of sheet metal - and it came out freaken awesome!

http://www.lowes.com/pd_57768-4-465.0066010.076_1z0yrgb+1z140mc__?productId=3729677&Ns=p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_qty_sales_dollar|1%26page%3D1&facetInfo=Valspar

I haven't clear coated it yet, or experimented with any kind of color sanding, polishing, or anything, but it looks a helluva lot closer to real chrome plating than any of the other 'Chrome Trim' paints I've seen (and yes, that even includes the SEM fake chrome stuff that NPD and other vendors sell).

I'd be interested to see if the clear coat turns that Valspar to mottled poo. Hope it doesn't... I'll be at Lowes in the morning if so

I've had some success with regular silver and/or chrome stripe cut from bulk sign material (on my cutting machine). The big negative with the chrome material is that it won't conform to irregular surfaces or bending around a radius (gauge surrounds, etc.). Worked OK on door panels and consoles.

I'm planning on trying some aluminum duct tape (cut to fit) and polish it. Upside is that it polishes well and will conform to most shapes (QCode351Mach did this with his honeycomb exterior tail light panel trim to refurbish). The downside is that as Don (OMS) pointed out, extreme heat will loosen the adhesive and allow it to simply fall off (we tend to get a little bit of that in West Texas... just a little... now and then ).

I'm willing to try anything out, since I have several dash trim and center gauge pod pieces that all need 're-chroming,' along with repainting and re-texturing (and I'll be replacing the woodgrain stuff with 3M black carbon fiber film). For the reasons of restomod, I can't see simply buying new panels just for some proper chrome if I can get something to work well enough.

I'll post results next weekend after playing with the Valspar paint some more.

this paint is also very close to the original look:

http://www.vhtpaint.com/products/platefinish/

I bought Chrome pin stripe. it cam in a 150' roll.

it worked very good, and for the curved parts I used a little heat from a heat gun, and it worked.

"I can't see simply buying new panels just for some proper chrome if I can get something to work well enough."

Eric, normally I'd agree with you on this one but I had to replace a broken dash panel on my old 69 SS ElCamino with a new one and well ... no other method could get the other existing panels to match the "factory look" of the chrome trim on the new one so I wound up replacing all of them. It definitely cost more but in the end ... it looked sweeeet!

I am curious though ... Those of you who used the spray can paint, how did you apply it ? Did you spray the "chrome" finish first and then mask off the trim and paint over the rest of the piece in the desired color ?

The aluminium tape seems like an interesting idea to ! I never would have thought of that.

I bought Chrome pin stripe. it cam in a 150' roll.

it worked very good, and for the curved parts I used a little heat from a heat gun, and it worked.

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+1..It works great

"I can't see simply buying new panels just for some proper chrome if I can get something to work well enough."

Eric, normally I'd agree with you on this one but I had to replace a broken dash panel on my old 69 SS ElCamino with a new one and well ... no other method could get the other existing panels to match the "factory look" of the chrome trim on the new one so I wound up replacing all of them. It definitely cost more but in the end ... it looked sweeeet!

I am curious though ... Those of you who used the spray can paint, how did you apply it ? Did you spray the "chrome" finish first and then mask off the trim and paint over the rest of the piece in the desired color ?

The aluminium tape seems like an interesting idea to ! I never would have thought of that.

Click to expand...

My thought is that I'm not restoring back to factory perfection, so if this gets it 'good enough,' it's worth it. Someone had also thought of doing all the old and messed up chrome in body color (light pewter, in my case) as accent, and it sounds like a pretty good idea. So worst case scenario, it all at least matches and looks like it belongs there (to a point).

Fortunately, the panels are easy enough to swap, so if it doesn't turn out right or goes to crap after awhile, I can still get new (repop) pieces with the new chrome looking perfect. The pieces I have are not cracked or broken, just need to be cleaned up and repainted. I'd thought about the water-slip decal carbon fiber (like Roy did to his and looks freaken awesome), but that's just a little too much carbon fiber for my taste.

I'm thinking that restoring the panel first, then masking off and painting the 'chrome' bits is the way to go. That way, there's no chance of the 'chrome' stuff coming off and messing it up. Same thing with using the tape or pin-stripes.