How to Prepare Plastic for Spray Paint for a Long Lasting Finish

[Applause] today i'm going to show you how to prepare plastic parts for your car ready for painting i'm going to use this mirror cap as an example it's brand new never been used virgin plastic but i'll also reference different types of plastic such as these door rubbing trims these mirror caps and mirror caps in general are made of hard plastic these are made of a soft plastic same as the bumpers are so you'll be able to paint any plastic part effectively robustly so that it will last [Music] just referencing that final comment that i made in the introduction so that it will last different plastics require different techniques to prepare them for paint some plastics in particular are very very difficult to paint not difficult to paint but difficult to paint robustly because for some plastics the chemical bond between the paint and the plastic is extremely low so special techniques are needed hard plastics such as this mirror cover are easier to paint than soft plastics such as those body strips indeed if you remember back to the 80s and i do then you may well remember that cars like maestro's sierras and a whole host of other cars when plastic bumpers first started to appear they were always either dark gray or black and they used to fade something chronic it took quite a long time for the automotive industry to work out how to paint the soft plastics of of car bumpers but it took a long time for the industry to work out how to actually paint them in such a way that they would stay painted and look good for the life of the car so that should give you some indication of just how difficult some of these soft plastics are to paint first step clean your parts if they're brand new and they've come to you in a sealed plastic bag or paper bag then you probably won't need to clean them if they're parts off your car that have lived on your car for a few years like this door trim for example it's very important to give it a very good clean dirt could transfer to the a surface and contaminate our paint job so you use a bucket of warm soapy water a bit of washing up liquid a washing up brush give it a good scrubbing really clean all the dirt off then give it a good rinse to make sure you get all the washing liquid off and allow it to dry thoroughly if the part if the part that you're cleaning is small enough and if the wife's out you could put it in the dishwasher dishwasher tablets and the detergents used in them make for very good parts cleaners and as it happens 17-inch wheels just fit inside the standard dishwasher get yourself some scotch brite pad no rougher than medium or a fine you could use wet and dry paper 1200 grit give your part a bit of a scuffing up all over nothing too brutal pay particular attention to the edges because the last thing you want is the finished paintwork peeling up at the edges there really isn't a lot of mystery to painting it's just like anything in life it's a matter of doing it properly once you know how it's quite easy i say it's easy there is a skill and there's a certain knack you'll gain that with practice if you want to practice painting if this is the first time you've ever even picked up a spray can cut some squares out of a cardboard box and practice spraying some pieces of cardboard and getting a good finish on them let's get just get the feel of the can some people say that when you sand down an object like this that you should always sand in a horizontal fashion because apparently that stops the paint from running down the part when you paint it i say that's a load of cobblers that's all you're looking to do to it very light scuffing with a brand new clean microfiber cloth give the part a spirit wipe down isopropyl alcohol you'll be able to get that from your local pharmacy from this stage onwards whatever b surface features you've got that you can use to hold the part do so we don't want to be touching the a surface anymore make sure to get all that sanding dust off and to give the part a thorough cleaning not only does the spirit wipe clean the dust off but it also helps to prepare the first few microns of the plastic surface for taking the paint and for helping the adhesion of the first layer of paint onto the material it's a chemical process i must confess that i don't fully understand all of the chemistry but i have worked with automotive painters who paint plastic trim parts and so i do know what the process is even though i don't fully understand the chemistry this next step very much depends on what the plastic material is if it's a hard material like these mirror caps made of something like abs then you don't need to do this step but if it's a soft plastic material such as a poly prop or or a polycarbonate or if like these door trims it's a this is a pp epdm mix and it's very soft these materials have a very very low surface adhesion to paint it's the chemistry between the paint and the plastic surface and to improve the adhesion between the paint and the surface of the material to improve the chemical bonds that go on there you'll want your small butane propane mix soldering torch that you would use to solder up central heating pipe work with and give the part on all its painted surfaces a waft over with the flame it should the part should be in the flame in the flame there but not touching the cone of the flame you're not looking to get the part really hot and you should keep the flame moving the area around the cone of the flame i'm going to call it the corona a bit like the corona of the sun i don't know if that's the proper technical term that area of the gases the burnt gases and some unburnt gases react with the very top microscopic layer of the plastic and it improves the way that the plastic electrostatically attracts the paint that's the best way i can explain it to you you could do it with an electric heat gun but an electric heat gun is nowhere near as effective in the industry they use big tanks of propane and a handheld gas torch that produces a large corona to do many parts at once they'll have perhaps 100 parts on a rack and they'll where's over all of them now we're getting very close to actually being able to put some paint on these i know what you're thinking you're thinking what a rigmarole this is and yes you'd be right it is a right or rigging roll but if you want to do the job properly sometimes this is what you have to do and the final step before we actually get to spray some paint on these is to give the parts a cleaned out wipe down with either paint preparation cloths which you can buy from your local auto store or use a tack rag your choice of paint is very important at this point make sure to purchase plastic primer sometimes known as adhesion aid but it must be a plastic primer keep the can in a warm place in the house or prior to using it stand it in a bowl of warm water shake the can up after you can hear the balls rattle shake the can till your hand hurts and then shake it some more once the can is thoroughly shaken up or shook up all shook up spray a few stripes and continuous circles on a test piece like the side of a cardboard box the reason for that is to make sure that the spray is working properly that it's not splattering and also to fill up spray portion of the can mechanism with paint if you need a refreshment break now is the time to do it also give your hands a thorough wash along with the first coat of primer from here on in it's just the same as painting any other part light coats at 10 minute intervals and then between different paints about half an hour as rest and when you put the final clear coat on leave it for two hours to flash off and then if you can bake it at about 60 degrees c for an hour first coat done the actual painting itself is much the same for plastic as it is for anything else but you now know the special treatments that plastic parts need in order for paint to stick properly to them and last well i hope you found this video useful if you did please give it a like down by the title and i shall see you next time

Channel: Cyclone Cyd

Views: 123,289

Keywords: how to prepare plastic for spray paint, how to prep plastic for spray paint, how to prepare plastic for painting, how to prepare plastic for paint, how to prep plastic for paint, paint plastic, how to paint plastic parts, how to prep plastic, how to paint plastic car parts, painting plastic car parts, what paint do i use on plastic, how to paint plastic interior car parts, how to paint plastic trim on car, paint plastic car parts, how to paint exterior plastic car parts

Id: VAHpJmSHZm0

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2020