Can I Paint my dash in the car without making a mess?

I want the top of my dash painted in my 50 Chevy cause it looks like*****.

Is it possible to paint it while in the car, get a real nice finish and not make a major overspray mess?

I thought maybe with an air brush or one of those small detail guns.

OR, do you think I could powder coat it if I had one of those free standing heat lamps for powdercoating ( which I have access to). I would think I would not be able to get it up to temp of 400 degrees.

Any thoughts are welcome.

thanks,

Steve

 

I don't see why you couldn't paint it in the car.. just mask everything off! I mean, everything! the paint will find a way to get it otherwise. Can't answer the powdercoat question.. don't know anything about it..

 

I painted mine with good results. just watch out from any dust and***** falling off the masking paper on the windshield.

 

Like they said...LOTS of masking!

I did it on one of my cars years ago and was VERY impressed with the results!

(Car had a snot green interior and I painted the metal parts satin black and swapped in black vinyl parts...made a HUGE difference in the way the car looked!)

 

When you DO decide to paint it, make sure you CLEAN it good! Nothin pisses me off more than interior pieces that fish-eye from wax, Pledge, Armor-All and all those other contaminants when ya try to lay down some color

 

I did a log time ago, take the steering wheel off if you can, also take out the front seat if you can ,will give you extra room to work with. also make sure you vacumn and then cover the floor a major source of dust/dirt source

 

Depending on what kinda car it is. You might want to remove and speakers and grills from the dash. I painted the dash in my 58 and it was all going smooth until I blew over the speaker grill, looked like a mini nuclear bomb went off. Before I started painted I took my air hose and I blew it out from probably 30 mins, and I still got all that dirt. Take out the speakers and grills.

farmall

 

When I painted the steering column in my 46, I built a mini "spray booth" inside the car with plastic. It turned out great!

 

I painted/woodgrained mine a while back and had no problems, Just hit it real good with Air to blow the junk off/out of the areas that are holding dirt so the paint gun don't do it while spraying.
Jdee

 

And if 'ya can....use a LOW -PRESSURE gun.... you can spray at like two pounds of pressure with VERY LITTLE overspray with a good HVLP gun......

Jersey skip

 

I did mine with a gavity feed touch up gun and was very happy compared to what I started with

 

no!!
but what do I know, they call me captian overspray!!

 

Thanks for the info guys. Gonna give it a try.

JDee, that dash looks incredible !! You have any more pics of it for us?

Steve

 

Just an added note of caution, as someone else alluded to...remove as many dials, knobs, trim pieces, emblems and gauges as you can. It will allow for a better job without as much tedious masking.

(Just be real carefull putting all that stuff back ON...it really*****s when you scratch the fresh, pristine paint installing your gauges again!!!)

 

I must be doing it wrong. I had horrible results with my 60, I spent 2 days masking everything off and another 3 west sanding it all down. I ended up laying down angel hair on the dask I got so tired of it. I took the dash of my 54 Buick, welded it up and painted it, and it came out with excellent resluts. Let us know how it goes.

 

My wife painted mine. She has more patience than me. Used a gravity feed touch up gun.

 

I should add that the bright gloss white will glare on the windshield pretty bad sometimes.

 

Here is the link to the other Dash and molding photos.
We have done here ,
Jdee
My photos and junk...

 

I just painted the dash in my 50 Fleetline and was amazed at how good it turned out. It's two tone, black on top with a beige/cream color below that dividing stainless trim piece. I just used spray cans from Kragen, color sanded, clear coated, more sanding then polished it out with a random orbital polisher. Like everyone else said, the cleaner you start out before masking, the less chance you'll have of blowing dust into the wet paint. I pulled everything off the dash before I started just to make it easier and got a few things rechromed while I was painting. Now I'm putting it all back together. The only tricky part was polishing under the windshied where it gets too tight for the polisher. Hope this helps.

 

Years ago,on my 39 Ford,I took the windshield out ( easy to do with a crank out window),put a fan behind me,put some of my moms blankets over the hood for overspray,and spray bombed it.Turned out fine in gloss black.As an added bonus,I drove it around for a while without the windshield,pretending it really was a roadster