The crazy dash repair

[mraitch]

As I mentioned earlier, I am still interested.

[notoptoy]

Congratulations on an ambitious project. I look forward to the results of your experiments!

[jcd0402]

As I mentioned earlier, I am still interested.

Glad to hear that.

Congratulations on an ambitious project. I look forward to the results of your experiments!

Thanks for the compliment, me too!

[JADCRUISER]

well yeha!! Im interested to!! hope vinyl arrive soon!!

[Datsun.David]

Julio -
Looks like a great effort! A little advice from someone who has never done this before, but who works with spray foam lots, and sands tonnes of stuff... Small details will be more obvious when the vinyl is applied, so take your time on the foaming and sanding step... Definitely try a couple of sample pieces in the vacuum first to make sure that you are getting the result you anticipate. The prep on the front end of a project like this is what defines the quality of the finished project.

You are definitely on the right track, but be patient and super critical of the sanding and foaming part so that you don't end up with small depressions in the finished project. We are all behind you and really looking forward to seeing your finished project!

[jcd0402]

well yeha!! Im interested to!! hope vinyl arrive soon!!

Me too!

Julio -
Looks like a great effort! A little advice from someone who has never done this before, but who works with spray foam lots, and sands tonnes of stuff... Small details will be more obvious when the vinyl is applied, so take your time on the foaming and sanding step... Definitely try a couple of sample pieces in the vacuum first to make sure that you are getting the result you anticipate. The prep on the front end of a project like this is what defines the quality of the finished project.

You are definitely on the right track, but be patient and super critical of the sanding and foaming part so that you don't end up with small depressions in the finished project. We are all behind you and really looking forward to seeing your finished project!

Thanks for the information the more the better. I'll be doing some testing with the vinyl before I glue it down to the dashboard. That way I can check and see if small imperfections are noticeable through the vinyl. And yes, I will definitely take my time on sanding the dashboard since I know that sanding it is the most important step to the whole wrapping.

[jcd0402]

Houston, we have a problem!



Okay, so the vinyl finally arrived at to the vinyl store today. To my great luck the stretching on the vinyl failed horribly (As you can see from the picture the vinyl is what you would consider "stretchy".) Luckily I have other uses for this vinyl, if not it would of been wasted money. Now I've decided to order vinyl from an online store that carries better stretching vinyl. Hopefully this time I won't be wasting money.

Little quote that's been helping me to continue with this project.
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” -Randy Pausch

[Datsun.David]

Persevere Julio...

I always rely on "Those who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person doing it..."

[mraitch]

You are right - brick walls are obstacles that often let us know the way around them - by there very existence.

[rudesvx]

Judging by the pic, it appears that you may have a leak in your vacuum. The vinyl would've sucked all the way to the bottom surface and adhere around the dash itself if suction was sufficient. Not sure what your dash is sitting on. If it's on a flat deck, you will need holes around the perimeter of the dash to allow the material to form closely around the part and the remaining air pockets can be pushed or squeezed away from the part while the material is still hot.

An insufficient seal will produce the same results as what you may have experienced.

[peter]

Is this just vinyl or has it a woven or knitted or non woven backing.

[jcd0402]

Judging by the pic, it appears that you may have a leak in your vacuum. The vinyl would've sucked all the way to the bottom surface and adhere around the dash itself if suction was sufficient. Not sure what your dash is sitting on. If it's on a flat deck, you will need holes around the perimeter of the dash to allow the material to form closely around the part and the remaining air pockets can be pushed or squeezed away from the part while the material is still hot.

An insufficient seal will produce the same results as what you may have experienced.

No, the vacuum has great suction power, more that I even expected. It's the vinyl that won't stretch to the contour of the dash because of the lack of elasticity

Is this just vinyl or has it a woven or knitted or non woven backing.

It's vinyl with a woven backing. The store told me that the vinyl would stretch as soon as I applied heat to it, that just didn't happen.

[JADCRUISER]

Hi Julio, how do you heat the vinyl?? I'm a model maker and we use to vacuum form parts like scalectrix and RC body cars, so we have a big heat resistor on top of the material and when it get floppy and star get on the mold ( dash) we get the vacuum suction on, the holes around the piece will help a lot so you can get better suction on the important points...
go on your quest is that the enthusiast can get the success final!!
best regards

[jcd0402]

Hi Julio, how do you heat the vinyl?? I'm a model maker and we use to vacuum form parts like scalectrix and RC body cars, so we have a big heat resistor on top of the material and when it get floppy and star get on the mold ( dash) we get the vacuum suction on, the holes around the piece will help a lot so you can get better suction on the important points...
go on your quest is that the enthusiast can get the success final!!
best regards

I used two heat guns to heat up the vinyl to make it stretch, but it only stretched so much that after that it was bad to apply more heat. It got up to the point that if I were to apply more heat to the vinyl it would of ruptured.

[JADCRUISER]

Hi Julio, how do you heat the vinyl?? I'm a model maker and we use to vacuum form parts like scalectrix and RC body cars, so we have a big heat resistor on top of the material and when it get floppy and star get on the mold ( dash) we get the vacuum suction on, the holes around the piece will help a lot so you can get better suction on the important points...
go on your quest is that the enthusiast can get the success final!!
best regards

I used two heat guns to heat up the vinyl to make it stretch, but it only stretched so much that after that it was bad to apply more heat. It got up to the point that if I were to apply more heat to the vinyl it would of ruptured.

Ok the heat has to be uniform so it stretch all the same!!