anyone have luck with dye for vinyl? Recently bought another 54 Ford, color is Pine Tree Green poly I think, maybe Highland Green. Well, the interior is done in black, white and aqua!! I want to dye the aqua for the time being and was wondering if anyone has had experience with dye. Thanks in advance!
My interior was painted by the previous owner and the paint has held up great but I don't know what brand it is. 40,000 miles sitting in the seats, starting to wear some now.
I’ve tried various vinyl paints. All the popular ones. I wasn’t impressed. From a sticky surface that never cured to stuff that wore off at the edges and seams. Side panels worked out ok but the seats were unsatisfactory. I finally replaced the vinyl with the color I preferred. Short term??? Sure try it out.
SEM brand would be the gold standard for dye, I just finished a dash in a o1 Dodge truck. About $20.00 a can. Make sure your surface is clean and silicone free before you spray it.
I did an El Camino interior that was blue and painted it gray with SEMS vinyl paint. It worked excellent. The secret seemed to be using their prep cleaner and cleaning it well first.
I only use SEM on well cleaned surfaces, with adhesion promotor. It will over time show wear on high traffic areas, seat, door panels around window cranks for example.
I checked SEM out, unfortunatly their standard vinyl coat does not offer a green, but their marine color coat does. I'll be getting some and doing this when the weather gets better and stays that way. Thanks to all.
I've also used SEM products with sucess....when I was a kid Mar Hyde was the upholstery in a can choice (wonder if it's still made).
My experience with marine products is they have always been better than automotive. I believe it’s because they are better in the open elements. Good luck.
I've dyed a number of seats, or door panels, and as mentioned already, prep is the key to success. But along with prep is application. Seats need to be degreased as directions tell you, but also should be disassembled to get them dyed properly and have it last. I dyed the two buckets in one of my hotrods many years ago and they still look like new. They were dark gray and my interior is black, so had to dye them black to match.
I did the interior, ( seats, kick panels and console ) in my V8 Corvair with a dye from Auto Vinyl Dye out of Richmond Va. It was easy to use, covers great. Seems to hold up well .
Spray can? Which one did you use? Vinyl Coat, Classic Coat or their Color Coat. The only version available in red is the Color Coat. They claim all three work with vinyl but I’m not sure of the difference in the three.
Just so everyone can see what I am gonna deal with, I want to make the aqua areas dark green. I will get the seats and panels done in the future but for now I just can't handle the mismatch with the extrerior.
Is there anything like the SEM spray product that a paint store outlet can custom-mix to match a particular color? My panel truck interior was done in a light oyster gray by the previous owner. Not my fav. Too streetrod-ish. I've got enough leather to re-upholster the seats and door panels. I like the color of the leather and won't re-color it, but I'd like to re-color the cargo area to match the chestnut brown leather....... the lower, vinyl portion for sure........ pretty sure the upper, fabric portion also but I could go with a couple of steps lighter tan on the upper and headliner.
When I had the NAPA store Martin-Senour had vinyl dye that could be custom mixed to order. They even had color charts for interior colors just like the ones for exterior. You could get it in sizes from a pint to a gallon. Pretty sure nobody has charts that go back to '54 but you could pick from the later model charts they have. Not sure they still offer this; it's been 20 years, and it may have gone away. Not all stores are going to have this. Your local jobber should be able to point you to one of the stores that is heavy in paint and body and would have the mixing base for this. I got some for my OT F-250 from the Grand Rapids Distribution Center that had an attached store that had everything. That was a company owned store, so they had a lot of stuff the smaller jobbers didn't. Worked well for me but I didn't change colors, just renewed the finish on the dash and door cards with the factory beige color. Sprays like paint, only thinner. It is dye, not paint.
I have had great success with SEM products. Clean, prep, clean. They were used on OT cars and have held up for years. Easy to spray.
Hello, We had a grey leather upholstery that was getting a little worn sliding in and out of the driver’s seat of our daily driver. It was a used old car at the time. But, Levis, shorts, dress pants and me sliding in and out did not help the grey leather stay smooth and new. It was not just sliding in and out, but in addition to that daily routine, it was the weight of the any person. We noticed that the passenger side of our used car was still pristine grey leather. When my wife and I drove in the grey leather car, she had jeans, too. But, they were smoother and in women’s smooth material construction. Few, if any metal tabs and rough rear pockets that stuck out more than women’s stylish, smooth shaped jeans. Plus, the weight of daily or weekly drives did not wear down the real leather material. So, I talked to a local upholstery shop and their idea was to use leather dye. So, I went to a shoe repair shop, yes, those were still around into the recent times prior to the pandemic, but now closed. The owner had several small bottles of grey leather dye. At the time, no one carried larger bottles, so they were the size of two, small, fingernail color polish bottles. Jnaki I used all of the leather conditioners prior to purchasing the leather dye bottles. From the popular automotive brands for cleaning leather, to the custom upholstery dealers that sold leather furniture conditioners/cleaners, etc. They all kept the leather smooth and almost new looking. But, did nothing to change the wearing out of the leather surface due to constant sliding in and out daily. The small bottle of grey leather dye was put on a clean cotton cloth and dabbed onto the worn surface. It soaked in and with more strokes, the worn spots and surrounding areas now had nice looking grey leather. The rest of the two bucket seats got the leather conditioning treatment that we had been using and now, the interior looked like new. Note: Some wearing out of leather or vinyl is so gone that any kind of dye is not going to make it come back. You will always see the thinner wear spots, not matching the smooth remaining surfaces. So, those may have to be reupholstered. Also, the material of the pants or clothing worn daily has some degree of blame as the rougher material does create irritation and faster wearing of the surfaces. Luckily, our situation solved itself and when we sold the car, it looked brand new or so close it was hard to tell there was some wearing down of the leather surface. But, another car we used almost daily for 30k miles did not have any wearing out, due to the change in my material selected for pants or shorts for daily wear while driving. YRMV
I've used SEM in the past with great results, still have one that I used it one 8 years ago and it looks really good. Just got a repo vinyl dash for an elco and in the box was instructions that said if you intend to dye it, to use nothing but Naptha to clean the surface.
I work for a company in the UK that supplies body shops with paint etc and can mix spray cans to order with a plastisizing element added to paint upholstery so any paint supplier should be able to do it Kev
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