Need a couple of sets of long armrest from a 1970 skylark. Any color needed no chalking or flaking. Nice sets required. Thanks a bunch.
I've redone a number of these. The reason I asked about the color is I recently fiinished a long armrest set in black. I recovered the pads and reshot the plastic (they were black originally). Go get some Bulldog Adhesion Promoter (O'Reilly's carries it approx $10-13 for spray can). Also see if SEM makes a vinyl/plastic paint in the color you need. Double check on the backside of some your original plastic interior parts to see if the plastic parts actually had any pearl in them (sometimes the pearl look was only utilized in the vinyls IMO...ie seatcovers, etc). Apply the Bulldog AP per THEIR INSTRUCTIONS and then the SEM paint. CLEAN THE HECK OUT OF THE PLASTIC PARTS FIRST....hot, hot water and lots of dishwashing soap and a good stiff nylon bristle brush. The key is to find some bases that haven't gotten dried out or "chaulky"...which is very prevalent on the lighter colored plastics. The darker plastics seem to withstand the sun exposure longer (black withstands it better than any other color). Has something to do with the stability of the dyes/pigments in the plastic. That said, you should be able to shoot some darker bases to whatever color you need. SEM is VERY THIN...it won't fill in the grain/texture of the plastic part so you can put plenty of light coats on the darker part to get the color change.
Thanks Patton, I have tried to recover my pearl white armrest and was not perfect. Maybe acceptable. I am going with darker armrest to give a try. I will try your method.
The key on the upper, padded part is to get a heat gun. You can get a decent and cheap one at H Freight. I built sort of a rig (wood board approx the length of the pad) to screw the foam/metal pad onto and then I clamp it in a vice (the wood part is in the vice, not the pad). Hard to explain so sometime I may drag it out and snap some pics. Anyway....this setup frees up both your hands to work on the new vinyl covering. Basically I sandwich the new vinyl between the wood block and the metal pad underside...just one side of the vinyl along the length of the pad. Then I pull the vinyl OVER the top of the foam armrest pad, stretching it somewhat. Then I attack the loose edge of the vinyl to another piece of wood with a staple gun and clamp this second board to the vice. With the vinyl "stretched" over the pad (not extremely tight) I run the heat gun along the top of the new vinyl. Be careful...too hot and you'll see the vinyl get real shiny as it melts. If it does that then it's time for a new piece of vinyl. With the pressure from the "stretch" and the heat the vinyl will sort of "reset" itself in the shape of the pad. I do this a few times....heat it up and go do something else as it cools off...do it again, etc. Now when you unclamp the vinyl you'll find it stays pretty much in place...following the form of the pad. Gluing it is anther task. Seems to take forever. You have to make a series of "V" cuts or relief cuts where the vinyl wraps around the underside of the metal base so you don't have a bunch of overlapping layers of vinyl. You can use Weldwood Contact Cement for this part. ONLY GLUE THE PART OF THE VINYL THAT TOUCHES THE METAL UNDERSIDE...don't put glue on the foam pad itself. No need for it there and if for any reason you every have to recover it the vinyl won't be stuck to the foam. If you get a bunch of glue on the foam pad it will tear it to pieces if you ever try to pull the vinyl off. A somewhat tedious process and as usual, the more you do the better they seem to get as you figure out where to cut, where to glue, where to stretch, etc. Thanks
Here's a couple pics of the long armrest pads I put new black vinyl on using the method described above. These go on the bases I mentioned.
Say those look nice Patton ! Can I drop mine off with you this weekend ?:Brow: Sorry for the intrusion Jim. DL
Long or short? (charge by the inch:rant: ) What color? Fairly time consuming but do-able if you want yours done. You coming thru this weekend?
'68 Frost white, not pearl. Long. per inch ouch, I'll bring my check book. Headed down Thur or Fri I believe. DL
Do you have the vinyl to match or can you source it? Let me know when you are headed this way...I owe you an overflow lid. The armrests are something I can do a little at a time in the garage...not a huge deal. The wood block rig is the trick....I may need to patent it.
Great directions Patton. I did a similar job a while back after talking about it with my upholsterer. He mentioned that the vinyl stretches only one way - I think he wanted me to stretch side to side rather than front to back. He also suggested (and I did this) to screw the pad to the armrest base to hold it all in place while it dries.
Most of the pulling I do is as you say Brad....side to side. Once you start the last step of gluing the vinyl to the underside, however, you will be stretching it out from all directions. It's possible he said that because pulling real hard in all directions while doing the initial stretch over the top would somehow distort the vinyl or result in it not sitting level across the whole pad. It's not a bad project as you do get some real nice results with the brand new vinyl sitting smoothly on the old foam pad.
I did the ones on my Aqua car. I used SEM super white as a base coat and then found a clear pearl at the local hobby store to finish them off and they matched near perfect.
