Project Boondoggle (or, so I went and bought a Z!)

[charliekwin]

Finished reflocking with zero minutes before the Super Bowl started. The second go looks much better than the first, which is good, because removing it was a real PITA that I'm not going through again.

[charliekwin]

I'm starting to consider the possibility that I'm just not a great flocker. Used too much glue the first time and apparently swung too far in the opposite direction on the do-over. There are are some thin and almost-naked spots where the glue must have dried before I got it flocked. I really, really don't want to strip it off again. I'm hoping -- cautiously -- that I might be able to re-spray some of the thin areas and have it blend i. without looking awful, so I have a small test piece I'll try doing that on first.

 

Edited February 7, 2017 by charliekwin

[charliekwin]

This flocking dashboard...

I tried thinking about this rationally, and before stripping the dash again, considered the following:

• Although mine didn't come out great, photos I've found of other DIY flocking jobs I've seen have similar flaws. Without the electrostatic applicator, it's really hard to get much better than a just-decent finish.
• Perfect is often the enemy of good. This is maybe a C+ job sitting here on the bench, but the dash in the car is a solid F. It might not be great, but it's a big improvement over what I have.
• I'm not sure I have enough material to do other interior bits and the whole dash a third time.
• Flocking was always my Plan B. Sometime down the line, if I ever want to try my hand at upholstery, I can pull the dash back out and strip everything off in just a couple hours, so why drive myself crazy?

So I threw it in the car just to see if, with all that in mind, I could live with the flaws. And...not really. In the car, in daylight, some sections look kinda shabby, like a threadbare rug. (Naturally, the less-visible parts like the end caps and bottom section came out great!) The span above the glove compartment in particular really stuck out. So I took one Hail Mary shot: carefully sanded off the offending section up to some natural edges and followed the curve on the top as best as I could, then re-flocked. It's very hard to tell until the excess gets knocked off, but I know I --somehow!-- avoided any egregious mistakes like drips or spray brush marks, so I'm cautiously optimistic about my chances here. If it looks half-decent or better, I'll touch up the trickier areas around the gauges. If not, well, third time's a charm?

[grannyknot]

The touched area looks very good, I wonder if a local powder coater might let you use his electrostatic generator and rent the spray booth for an hour?

[charliekwin]

I haven't powder coated anything, but I assume the gun charges the powder in the same way the applicator charges the flock. Unless they have that applicator as well, there's probably little help there. There are companies that do flocking professionally, but for some reason the majority that come up when searching are located in England.

Anyway, I brushed off the flock this evening and even though it didn't come out like I wanted (again), I'm considering this last attempt a successful failure. The good news is that the Hail Mary worked: on the hard edges, the new flocking blends in seamlessly; and on the top of the dash, the line between new and old is barely noticeable. I can live with it. It still didn't flock well, but I think it I just need to use a little more glue next time.

[charliekwin]

Well, I've tried this four times now, and four times the results have been lacking. Amazingly, of all the things I've tried with over the years, glue and fuzz is the one that's gotten the better of me.

So, if there's anyone else out there who's thinking about flocking their dash, my advice at this point is: don't.

[Captain Obvious]

Wow. Well that really sucks. I've seen your skill in the other work you have done, so I know it's not an ability issue.

Thanks for the warning, and thanks for taking the leap so the rest of us didn't have to.  

[charliekwin]

Kind of how I feel about it too Cap. I've done plenty of projects that are ostensibly harder, but none have given me this much trouble. Glutton for punishment that I am, I'm sanding it off again. Definition of insanity, right?

[JSM]

On 2/18/2017 at 10:14 PM, charliekwin said:

Kind of how I feel about it too Cap. I've done plenty of projects that are ostensibly harder, but none have given me this much trouble. Glutton for punishment that I am, I'm sanding it off again. Definition of insanity, right?

Don't tell that to Edison!  Just look at it as one more way to not make a lightbulb work!

[charliekwin]

25 minutes ago, JSM said:

Don't tell that to Edison!  Just look at it as one more way to not make a lightbulb work!

Ha! Having noticed what's worked and what hasn't, I think the main issue is the glue drying out before the flock goes on. Even having worked quickly (<10 minutes) in cool temperatures doesn't seem to have been enough. I've got one more shot at it tomorrow -- mainly because I'll probably be out of materials afterwards, so I gotta make it count! -- and I'm going to recruit the wife to be an extra set of hands to both cut the time down even more and keep the glue on the unflocked areas fresh.

[charliekwin]

Well, I flocked it again and had somewhat-better-but-still-not-great results. I've been trying to touch up the most obvious blemishes, but I may be slowly and meticulously making things worse...

BUT, there may be hope yet! I just came across this page: http://www.kwicklabs.com/FiveCootsFlockingExperiment.htm and picked up three interesting points:

1. Even flocking something as small as a duck decoy, it's very hard to get a great finish. So maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about having trouble with a whole dashboard.
2. Recoating and reflocking makes for better results. That's what I noticed in areas I've tried touching up, too.
3. Plain old Rustoleum works just as well as the Donjer adhesive. I've got plenty of that.

Might give it one more shot (starting to sound like a broken record here...) if I think I have enough fibers left to do the job.

[charliekwin]

God help me, this'll be the last post on flocking a dashboard, because I'm done with it. Persistence kind of pays off though, so remember: if at first you don't succeed, try like eight more times, until you run out of patience and materials!  

Now that it's all said and done, I ended up getting the best (not great, mind you) results by spraying some slightly thinned Rustoleum over the already-flocked dash. I can live with the results for a while, even if they aren't perfect.

If anyone else wants to do it, I still think my general advice of "don't" is probably best, but with the experience I had, I the conclusions I've come up with are as follows:

• An even coat of paint/adhesive is really important to achieving a good. Brushing doesn't seem to work well (some of the photos show the brush strokes fairly well). Spray it on.
• A thick layer of paint works better. Thin layers dry too fast. There's a very small Goldilocks zone though: too thick and it'll run.
• I think the size and complex shape of the Z dash are just not well suited to flocking. Getting the right amount of glue on there and getting the whole thing covered is much more difficult than I expected it to be.

I got tired of taking the same pictures, but here's a few of the final flocking steps, before and after.

This was also my chance to work on the gauges. They all got a thorough cleaning, paint touched up, and I scavenged the better bits and pieces  -- lenses, brackets, etc. -- from the spare set from the other dashboard, and shot flat white paint on the insides of the housings to (maybe) increase reflectivity. I never liked the green, so all the filters were removed and the bulbs replaced with LEDs. Only snag in the whole thing was discovered after reinstalling the dash: the tach bulbs didn't work! The whole thing came back out and I found out the tach bulbs, for some reason, were getting -12 volts. Swapped the wires on the pigtail and all is good. Pretty happy with how they came out.

One more "while I'm at it..." job: the fusebox surround had really seen better days, so I used it as a template to make a new one. I covered it with the same vinyl I've used on some of the other interior bits, which I think looks better than just painting it black. By some minor miracle, all the holes actually managed to line up. It's the little things.