What kind of prep work can be done to the center console for automotive paint?

I wanna get the top of the center console painted then off to sharpie works

Wanna do the prep work my self to save some cash.

What's the best way to get a smooth finish on the plastic?

Sand all the bumps out? Or rough up, and bondo?

 

send him your hood chris, tell em to use greeen sharpie

 

Shipping would b a nightmare

 

Touché good sir


BUMP for quality advise for a great guy!

 

subd want to do mine black. Used plastidip but rubs off at the points you touch/rub.

 

i'm looking to wrap center console in carbon. and i plan to sand down smooth. with paint, as with carbon it might not even stick or in ur case spread and u could get some areas with more or less paint than others

 

basically take your time with a grinder and 36 grit and do small sections at a time. then 80, 120, 180 and smooth it all out. they key is to try and not heat the plastic up. so do sections and take your time.

what i would do in this instants it get it some what smooth with a grinder, then 80 grit to get rid of all of the grinder marks, put a skim coat of plastic filler, block it and sand it smooth, prime it, wet sand it, paint it off to wherever you wanna put it.

the cheapo way to do it would be to scuff the hell out of everything and primer it until its filld and smooth but it wont last and will probablly shrink up eventually. not worth the time to do it this way.

 

Ok so basically just sand down all the bumps till its smoothish, thanks

 

yep theres no good way of doing it unfortunately. its just gotta be done. put a glaze coat or coat of plastic filler over it and it will take care of the imperfections.

 

Just adding some visuals since you already got your answer... but ya what the users said above are correct.

I went through the same thing with my door panels (smoothing them out), so the the same process can be done with your center console. What I did with my door panels was... used a coarse grit sandpaper, primered them, then wet sanded with 400+600 grit sandpaper.
You can see the progression from a rough door panel to a smooth door panel.

Initial sanding-still rough


Primer- still rough


Smooth after wet sanding

 

oh **** yes this!

 

Maybe I'm backward but I'd take and clean it real good and mix up some resin and get some fleece fabric and paint it with resin let it get tacky and apply the fleece and then wet the fleece with resin and get a good coating then I'd wet sand and give it a good primer coat and wet sand and then paint it whatever color.

 

Fiberglass doesn't really stick to plastic

 

I would think that the bondo method would be better only if you didnt have to ship it and stuff. Bondo doesnt like bending obviously haha. Sanding down and painting like youre doing would be best

 

But it sounds like less work just to sand it down lol

 

That's odd, because that's how I have fixed motorcycle fairings for years. I must be getting special resin then

 

Hell I built a seat cowl out of an old ripped up seat that I duct taped over and then took cardboard and made the hump and duct taped over that then resin'd and fiberglassed over then did bondo and sanded it out!

 

some filler sorta sticks to plastic but it will eventually give. i dont know why people use fiberglass with all the smc and plastic adhesives now days to make for a proper repair.

you gotta remember their are a ton of different plastics. fiberglass will not stick to all of then just like you cant plastic weld the yellow plastics found on older gm cars.

easiest thing to do is sand it down till its smooth and put a skim coat of glaze just so your cover up your scratches. sand, prime, paint.

 

well how does glueing plastics on a bike back together with adhesive hold up against vibration and stress?