How to Repair a Gash in your Dash - a Tutorial with Pics

[patrickt]

A buddy of mine was lamenting his gouged textured black dash (just like almost all of our Cobra dashboards). When I told him that repairing a black textured dash was very easy to do, and the result would be almost impossible to spot, he didn't believe me. And when I told him that you could practice the repair as many times as you wanted before you did it, and that if you managed to make a mistake you could easily undo it, he really didn't believe me. And when I upped the ante by telling him he already had most of the tools and supplies to do it just sitting around the house, well... that pushed it over the edge. So, I put together this quick-pic tutorial for him showing exactly how you practice the repair before you actually do it on your dash. For an absolutely dead-nuts on grain match, you need to make a copy of the existing grain pattern, and not use a pre-made grain paper. The material to make that copy only costs about $20 and is basically fool-proof. Here are the step-by-step instructions:

1) My demonstration repair will be performed on the back of a CD drive. It was handy, since you can see the difficulty in applying black Kiwi wax to a white plastic. You have to put many thin coats on it. It gets easier though after you've put a few coats on. This is key to a quality dashboard repair -- you will be putting many, very thin coats, on the damaged dash area.



2) The filler is basic Kiwi black shoe polish, in the can (I have also used the Kiwi Black "Parade Gloss" if you have a particularly shiny dash). Do not discount the hardness or "staying power" of Kiwi when it has been heat treated. And no, it doesn't melt in the normal sun. Yes, it will feel as hard as your dash and will stand up to casual rubbing, but not fingernail gouging. It is not suitable for seat repairs though. As a side note, you should use "fresh wax." Not the crap that's been sitting in your closet for the last 25 years.



3) First coat, applied with a Q-Tip, pretty thin as you can see. We'll do it again, and again, and again, and again. Giving maybe 15 minutes or a half hour between applications. Take your time, and let it dry. You do not need to sand between coats.



4) Getting better, more coats.



5) We've built it up nicely now. Let it sit overnight for absolutely thorough drying.



6) Sand it down with 600 grit paper. It doesn't have to be a "mirror finish" but it has to be flat enough so you don't see imperfections when angled against a light and so that you can't really feel where the wax starts when you drag your finger across the area. Believe me, sanding wax is much easier than sanding body filler.



7) Tape a piece of graining paper over the area, then heat it up with your small iron for five or ten seconds (have you iron plugged in for a good five minutes first). Both of these items come in a vinyl/leather repair kit from the auto store, but never use the catalyst/plastic combinations that come in that kit -- they're permanent and generally do more harm than good. Not pictured here is me putting a piece of flat thick plastic over the paper after heating it to squash it down and act as a "chill bar" -- you do that for about 30 seconds after removing the iron. The piece of flat thick plastic was the housing of a wireless card I had sitting around; it wasn't anything fancy or special.





8) After ten minutes or so, remove the paper. Here are two pictures, the graining is perfect. You can adjust the glossy/flat tint of the repair by using a soft paintbrush, or one of those nice little brushes that is in your wife's makeup box she uses to put powder on her nose....





9) You will be surprised at how hard the wax patch is, but it is not as hard as the dash itself and you can feather the edges and touch up your work using a pencil eraser.



10) If you somehow manage to screw this up, the wax can me removed with a heat gun on the low setting and a soft cloth or just sand it down, add more coats of wax, and do it again.


Graining papers are available for about five bucks off the internet. Grain mold to clone your exact grain is available for about $20. Like this: http://www.vinylpro.com/product/V98 This really is a repair you can do. In fact, even RodKnock could handle this one and do a virtually perfect repair that is almost undetectable.

Yay.

[SKINNEDR]

I like the idea of using the wife's Makeup brush, using it and putting it back in the case..LOL.
Thanks for the education..
Dex..

[madmaxx]

Too Cool!!!!!!!!!!!! Wish I would have seen this 5 years ago. My brother bought a lincoln and damaged a small area in the dash the size of a dime. It drove him nuts and sold the car a month later at a $5k loss!!! He and I thought you had to replace the whole dash because that is what everyone said.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by madmaxx

Too Cool!!!!!!!!!!!! Wish I would have seen this 5 years ago. My brother bought a lincoln and damaged a small area in the dash the size of a dime. It drove him nuts and sold the car a month later at a $5k loss!!! He and I thought you had to replace the whole dash because that is what everyone said.

There are boutique places that do stuff like this, and it's almost like doing a magic trick for someone. They're absolutely amazed. Then you teach them the trick and it's like "wow, is that all there is to it?" It's just like watching those "Masked Magician Exposes Magic's Greatest Secrets" shows. Once you see how it's done, the magic's gone and anyone can do it. Or, I suppose you could pay me to fly out and fix your dash -- that would still be cheaper than replacing it.