Custom door panels?
Custom door panels?
I was wondering, what kind of work and materials are required to achieve something like this:
Not the same color or material obviously..thats hideous lol. But what it I wanted to take my GP door panels, make them completely smooth and put a coat of glossy paint on them? I got alot of practice using fiberglass, bondo and sanding in auto class, I did alot of body work on cars. Is it the same Idea? Apply, Dry and Sand?
Ive seen so many cars with nice smooth shiny painted dashboards and I was wondering how hard is it? I've got all the tools needed to do the job..and a good eye for this stuff. Does anyone have any step by step documentations of someone doing something like this?
Not the same color or material obviously..thats hideous lol. But what it I wanted to take my GP door panels, make them completely smooth and put a coat of glossy paint on them? I got alot of practice using fiberglass, bondo and sanding in auto class, I did alot of body work on cars. Is it the same Idea? Apply, Dry and Sand?
Ive seen so many cars with nice smooth shiny painted dashboards and I was wondering how hard is it? I've got all the tools needed to do the job..and a good eye for this stuff. Does anyone have any step by step documentations of someone doing something like this?
50 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 148
Most of the factory parts are made of a material called PPO which has its own mold release agent built into it because of that it's almost impossible to get any sort of lasting finish on it in terms of high gloss paint the show cars ya see with painted door panels are constantly getting touched up or repainted altogether cus the paint (even when using adhesion promoters) will just peel off when rubbed against repeatedly the only effective way to stop this is to build new panels fdrom fiberglass or some other sort of paint friendly material made from scratch and your own design or using the originals as a mold
Administrator
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 16,860
I just remade a set of 4 door panels for a 4Runner. I separated the top vinyl half from the plastic bottom half and then put 2 6.5" midbass into each door. I stretched and glassed the whole bottom end of the doors and then vinyled them. No edges that way. I'll try to remember to post some pics.
0 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 11
i've done tons of this stuff and its really comes down to how much time you have. there are plenty of options out there...do the stretch method with left used for boxes, mold with foam and melt the foam out or just leave the foam behind. If your real ambitious you can create a mold and make inner door panels from there. It jsut depends on how much time you have to do it. Creating a glossy finish means that everything must be perfect!!!
