Topic: SEM paint does it really hold up?

[Godrokz]

Ok so I have dyed a complete interior for my 76 TA project. All the panels were black and I'm doing a firethorn interior. I used sem vinyl cleaner, adhesion promoter and then about 4 coats of firethorn. Upon assembly of the interior, everywhere the vinyl seats are touching the interior components it is pulling the sem paint off(i.e. center console, seat base, rear seat side panels, etc). Is this stuff supposed to be durable or is that just the nature of the beast when doing a complete color change? I've also noticed it scratches pretty bad too. I live in az, could it be the heat that jacked up the dye ?

[NWW-79 T/A]

When I did mine, it held up pretty well. Most stuff won't scratch or peel at all, but I did notice the sail panels will lose paint just from a finger nail. It might be because of the conditions that they were painted in. It says on the can only to paint when its around 70° and low humidity outside. Which was pretty tough for me here in Texas. I know Arizona has little humidity, but its hot there. Maybe it was just too hot outside at the time, or that the panels you painted were sun damaged beforehand

[deadfish]

I've had the same experience. It holds up well on the door panels and dash with a couple of coats of low luster clear on top, but things like the seat trims where the seat back comes in contact with it just doesn't stay put. I think I need to go over the top with something that keeps the vinyl from seat covers and the SEM from sticking together

[Greenbird76]

PREP, PREP AND MORE PREP especially on original panels!.   I have noticed that you have to do a very good prep of the plastic to remove any oils or unseen grease.  I wash mine with a mild soap and water first.  Then used SEM plastic prep.  Also, If the piece is chaulking/ dry rotted in any way shape or form, the paint will not stick unless you mildly sand the plastic until reaching solid plastic.  Be careful because you will loose the grain pattern on the plastic very quickly.  Also be very careful that you use thin coats on first two or three of them to not overpower that factory grain affect.  I painted my donor camel tan seat back white using SEM about 1.5 years ago.  My originals were dry rotted and scratched badly.  They have held up very well.  The original rear arm rests and lower door panels were also in need of some help.  I had to sand them using a very light grit paper, prepped them and redyed them white.  I just redyed the donor camel tan center console black too.  6 months and looks great.  My interior just needs the front driver seat recovered and sail panel replacements. 

The week of redye- 1.5 years ago


4-5 months ago after center console redye.  you can see how well the seat backs and lower door panels have held up.

[ponchonutty]

Green is spot on.  You have to no matter what properly prep them.  If not, you are just wasting your time.  The areas people mostly complain about this dye not holding up is in the same spots you mentioned.  The plastics there just don't last and if they are eaten up by the sun and are chaulky or you can easily make marks in the plastics with your fingernail, you need to sand them.  Doing so is a double edged sword though because you will sand the texture away.  SEM also makes a texture spray for this issue but it won't match 100%.  You will need to learn how to feather the edges.

Yeah, the first thing I normally do is scrub them a few times with dish detergent followed by Pre-Sol then rubbing alcohol and paper towels.

Light dusting of the color coats is key.  Then followed by a few good coats of clear.

[Fbodywarehouse]

Use the low luster clear coat also and youll like it feel free to call me with questions too. We have redyed about 1100 items so far this year for clients as we are the only parts vendor that resets color to clients.

[Angelo]

I was just going to start a new thread to express how much I love SEM color coat. Monday I had a professional glass service pull my windshield out, yesterday I painted the metal cowl portion of the dash, I took my time applied 5 light coats to go from the factory gray to landau black, then one medium coat, followed by 2 medium coats of low luster clear. Cowl dash looks better than anything I've ever painted before. Today I did my padded dash in corners/cracks and my accuform dash cover, 3 light coats, one medium, then 2 medium low luster clear coats. Prep wise I washed my dash with dish soap, dried, sanded with 120 grit, then cleaned with SEM plastic and leather prep, then applied the paint just mentioned. I just used the sem plastic prep for the dash cap. Its very forgiving, I accidently had the tip of my glove getting into the nozzle stream and a few blotches occurred,  but with light coats it didn't ruin the paint, it dried and you can't see them. Expensive stuff, but worth it. So far I've used 1 full  and 1/3 can landau black and about 1/3 color coat. I will post pics tomorrow.

[Fbodywarehouse]

It is awesome stuff!

[Angelo]

Oh yea! Here's a pic with the dash cap next to the metal cowl dash.