Alright, here’s a 2-for-1 special coming your way. First up, we have paint update #5 with the finished interior. Then it’s on to dash flocking. Don’t know what “flocking” is? Stick around…
As I’ve said earlier, the inside of the car including the engine bay were painted with graphite zolatone. This paint isn’t like anything else, it’s water based (requires a sealer), extremely lightweight (no clear coat), and is 100% scratch resistant. It’s basically a black paint with millions of little white and silver flakes in it. The paint itself was originally created during some freak accident where chemicals were mixed incorrectly.
Here’s the engine bay:
Inside:
And I couldn’t really get pics of the outside since it was inside of the paint booth. I had about 3 feet on either side to work with.
The white flakes in the interior should look really good once the white tear pattern goes on the side of the car. They should compliment each other very nicely. It will also look a bit less strange once some of the space is taken up with what we’re calling an interior…seats, dash, steering wheel…and I don’t think I missed anything.
So, speaking of dashes, we flocked every dash piece last night including the vent rings, gauge cluster surround, etc. So, what is “flocking?” It’s basically a process that covers the dash in a micro-suede. Aside from looking awesome, it completely eliminates glare from the dash which is essential on the track.
A quick warning: the pictures are going to look a little weird just because they were taken at night with a crappy flash. The dash looks much “softer” in real life (like suede).
The process started out with sanding the piece to be flocked. Then we sprayed it in a black latex spray paint to seal it. Once that dried, we sanded that. At that point, the piece was ready for flocking.
The entire process only takes 15 minutes, but this certainly isn’t by choice. The nasty adhesive will only accept the flocking fibers for 15 minutes after it’s applied, so you have to work FAST.
On your mark, get set…GO:
I found the key was to glob it on pretty thick and then smooth it out across the entire piece. Once it was completely covered in adhesive it was moved to our flocking station, comprised of a giant cardboard box and 200 square feet of plastic.
Once the flocking itself is completed the pieces have to sit for 72 hours to cure. Once they cure, you can blow them off with an air compressor to get rid of the excess fibers.
I practiced on smaller pieces first, but once it was time to do the dash it became apparent that there was no way I’d be able to cover an entire dash in adhesive AND spray it with the fibers by myself in 15 minutes. I worked with a friend and we were able to cover the dash in adhesive in about 8 minutes. Once that was done it was a mad rush to get all of the fibers on before it dried.
Finally, all of the pieces were ready to sit for 72 hours:
I’ll take better pictures of the dash and other pieces using natural light this weekend once they’ve cured. These pictures really don’t do them justice at all…they look amazing.
