Chrome is certainly an appealing trim material for a lot of people, but for others, chrome trim can come off as tacky, gaudy, or as a tryhard attempt to make an ordinary vehicle seems luxurious. While a lot of manufacturers are starting to move away from using chrome trim, there’s still a plethora of older vehicles that use it.
Fortunately, if you have a car with a lot of chrome trim that you don’t particularly want, you can always paint over it with Plasti Dip. Using Plasti Dip is an inexpensive and convenient way to redo the colors on your car’s various trim pieces, and it’s also something that anyone can do in the span of an afternoon.
Today, we’ll be going over everything you’ll need to know about Plasti Dipping your car’s chrome trim. If you’re interested, read on!
What Is Plasti Dip?
If you’re not familiar with Plasti Dip or how it works, let’s take a second to explain. Plasti Dip is a PVC-based spray paint that was originally intended to be used as a spray-on rubber coating for various objects.
The thinking was that you would apply a coating to Plasti Dip to something that needed more grip, like the handle of a tool or gardening implement. Plasti Dip was originally invented in the 1970s, although it wasn’t until over three decades later that it became popular in the automotive community.
It’s not known who was actually the first person to popularize the use of Plasti Dip in an automotive context, but it quickly became popular for a number of reasons. For one, Plasti Dip can be applied to pretty much every surface, with the exception of surfaces that get really hot like exhaust tips or the inside of the engine bay.
Because Plasti Dip is a PVC-based paint, it’s also incredibly easy to remove; if you screw up a Plasti Dip job, you can just peel it off and try again. Plasti Dip is also available in a wide variety of colors.
Supplies You’ll Need
Now that we’ve got your up to speed on why Plasti Dip is so great for painting vehicles, let’s go over the supplies you’ll need to get this job done. Fortunately, aside from the Plasti Dip itself, you don’t need all that much.
Basically, the only thing you’ll need other than Plasti Dip is something to mask the parts of your car you don’t want to get paint on. Painter’s tape will probably be the best thing for this purpose, although if you don’t have any you can get away with using masking tape.
As for how much Plasti Dip you’ll need, one can of Plasti Dip can coat about 6 square feet of material with a layer of paint about 5 mils (0.005 inches) thick. You should aim for a coating that’s about 10 mils thick to make it sufficiently durable, so calculate how much space you need to cover and figure out how much Plasti Dip you’ll need based on that.
You’ll also want to clean off the surfaces you want to paint on beforehand, so make sure you have some car cleaning wipes on hand for this purpose.
How to Delete Your Chrome Trim With Plasti Dip
Now that you hopefully have all of the requisite materials to get the job done, it’s time to actually get out and do it. Painting your car with Plasti Dip is a pretty easy process, but if you want to make sure you get it right the first time, there are a few things to keep in mind.
Here’s how to correctly use Plasti Dip to de-chrome your car:
Prep Your Work Area
First of all, you want to make sure your work area is set up for painting with Plasti Dip. You’ll want to avoid working in weather that is too hot or cold, or too windy or rainy. If you have an enclosed garage available, this is probably going to be the best place to apply your Plasti Dip.
If you don’t have a garage, an alternative solution would be to set up one of those big camping canopies over your car. Obviously this isn’t the perfect solution, but it should work in a pinch.
Mask Your Car
Next, you’re going to want to apply your painter’s tape over all the surfaces of your car that you don’t want to get paint on. You should cover a much wider area than you think you’ll need because the overspray from the Plasti Dip can end up reaching a lot farther than you might think.
To cover up really small areas, use a craft knife or something similar to cut off small pieces of tape that will fit.
Apply the Plasti Dip
Now, you can start applying the Plasti Dip for real. First, however, make sure you give the can a good shake for at least a minute. You might not think it at first, but not shaking your Plasti Dip can have a noticeable effect on the final product.
The manufacturer recommends holding the can about 10-12 inches away from the surface you want to paint when spraying, but you might want to adjust this difference if you don’t like how your paint is looking.
Let the Paint Set
Once the first coat has been applied, you should allow the paint to dry before applying another layer. The time it takes for Plasti Dip to dry depends on the weather conditions, but it usually takes about half an hour. If you really want to make sure, however, it wouldn’t hurt to wait an hour or so in between coats.
Apply More Layers
Once the first coat has dried, you can apply more layers if you want. If you want your Plasti Dip to be really durable, however, you should probably apply at least 4-6 coats of Plasti Dip on any given surface. Not only is a thicker layer of Plasti Dip more durable, but it will also be easier to remove later if you want to.
Remove Your Masking
Finally, when you’ve finished applying all of your coats of Pasti Dip, you can remove the tape you used for masking. To avoid pulling the Plasti Dip off with the tape, you should try to pull away from the area you painted rather than toward it.
Once you’ve finished removing the tape, you should be all done! And best of all, if you’re not satisfied with the end results, you can just peel the Plasti Dip off and try again another time.