I have an armrest that I sprayed with Duplicolor Interior dye and I was wondering am I supposed to spray clearcoat on it after? In all the threads I've seen about interior dye nobody ever mentions it.
No clear coat needed. It wouldnt allow enough flexibility on the soft vinyl and may crack. You just need to use some vinyl prep to get it clean, then spray it with the dye. 50 resto has two different dyes. One is for the soft vinyl and the other is for the hard plastic.
if you want a kinda "wet" kind of look to it, yeah... it's always extra protection to the paint... one coat usually doesn't add alot of shine, especially on those kind of plastics
Well I have already sprayed it. I did like some people said and cleaned it with soap and water real good first, I also used some armor all cleaner wipes, then went over the whole thing with alcohol. It may just have got a bunch of junk mixed in from outdoors, or maybe it's not dry all the way, but it just feels kinda "rough". It's not like you can see yourself in stock interior, but of course it will kinda have a semi-gloss. If you rub your hand on it you can tell by the way it feels it's been painted.
Well it wasn't tacky last night, and it's not tacky today, it's just rough feeling. I think it may just have a bunch of trash in the paint. Somehow I knew this wouldn't work out for me.
New to the site, but figured I'd respond since I just did my enire interior from light grey to black and it looks and feels amazing, but I did have all these problems along the way. First off Armor All soaks into the plastic and will make it impossible to get it right even after cleaning it. Auto part stores have Plastic prep which actually turns the plastic or vinyl to a whiteish haze, you may have to do it a couple times to really get it clean but when its time to paint the first couple of coats actually soak into the plastic,After 2 or 3 coats let it dry for a few days and then hit it with a ton of armor all......it's soak that up too the first 3 or 4 times, use alot, and the shine and look is like the factory.
Well I didn't use Armor All, I used Armor All BRAND cleaning wipes...they're just soapy wipes. I did scrub the crap out of it with dish detergent and water, and then rubbed on it with alcohol and it did kinda make the plastic part whitish on some parts like you said. The finish is very dull looking and the texture is kinda rough on both the plastic and vinyl top cover. So I should get some sandpaper to try and start over? BTW, the armrest is dark grey and i'm trying to make it more of a light grey.
no, not sand paper! Go to your auto parts store and ask for a maroon color scoth brite pad. use a wax remover on the panels before scuffing. Then, scuff it down with that and then re-dye it. Should look factory!