Quote:
Originally Posted by elmariachi
I just bought a set of Billboards from a neighbor with only 200 miles on them. He had used the spray-on Plasti-Dip stuff and while it looked okay, it had absorbed the oil from the rubber and turned the letters sorta tan, and with very little effort I managed to rub a letter completely off with my thumb. So I rubbed all of them off, masked them all, and ordered a can of the Ranger Tire Paint. The Einsteins at Ranger said the stuff was water-based so I thinned it a bit and loaded up my Badger airbrush. The stuff comes out of the can with some lumpy coagulation to it that I couldn't resolve. So, it didn't spray very well, but I did manage to get it working well enough to spray them all with a base coat and then a heavier final coat. I then went back and used an awl to scratch the stencil lines in the letters. They look great and based on how much scratching I had to do to get the stencil lines back, I'd say they will look good for a long time.
It took me about 30 minutes to mask each tire, so a couple hours there, and then 10 minutes to paint all four and clean up. So all in all maybe 3-4 hours.
 |
El,
Forget water, thin it with 50% isopropyl. Strain and fill your cup. Then turn down your brush pressure and shoot freehand, no mask. You'll get the same look as the original.
The Ranger won't turn brown but over time, exhaust soot and brake dust will gray them down. I actually prefer that to the bleached white look, really has that vintage look. Easy to recoat once a season if you like.
Besides, stop screwing with tires and get on that cooling system!
