After reading through this, I think I’m going to use Duplicolor to paint the sides of my TE stick…
Now, with as glossy as those plastic pieces are to begin with, was it necessary for those of you who did the same thing to sand the plastic at all before applying the Duplicolor?
I understand it’s supposed to dye the plastic, but I just want to be sure that there is no required prep-work other than cleaning debris away.
I just finished painting an EX2, and it looked really, really awesome after I dyed it with the Rustoleum stuff, but it looks bad now that I clearcoated it. The really nice black that was on it is now a dark, dark gray, not unlike the color of an Xbox 360 Elite.
The texture is really nice looking at least. Can I sand off the clearcoat or something?
Whats up everyone. iv scrolled through this thread but im still having a little confusion. if i use duplicolor’s tuner blue vinyl dye and wait 5 or so days. What would be something to give it a great glossy finish???
I have to vouch for Duplicolor’s quality.
I have only used it on the bezel and buttons, but they came out great; not a single blemish or smudge.
After I get my plexi, I’m going to have to decide whether or not to paint the sides. My only concern is the smoothness of that plastic; however, the buttons seem just as smooth, so I don’t see much of an issue. I’ll report back with pics if I decide to paint the sides.
if I quote everyone’s posts this will be too huge, but it seems like a lot of people are asking similar questions so hopefully this will cover a few of you.
about the TE sides: Both vinyl dye and krylon fusion works fine on these. I’ve read that the glossiness doesn’t affect anything, but I always sand with 1000 grit wet/dry lightly first just to be safe. It’s not much sanding, just a few seconds on each side.
About clearcoating for glossy finish: I learned this the hard way. Just spraying a clear coat on your vinyl dye job will NOT give you a nice mirror gloss finish. It will just give you an orange peel-y look which (in my case at least" makes it look a lot worse than the pretty professional look the dye gives you with such ease. You CAN get that nice mirror finish with some coats of the glossy clear coat + proper sanding, rubbing compound, swirl remover, buffing etc. But unless you have a lot of patience and know what you’re doing I wouldn’t really recommend it. I tried and failed miserably… of course I just might be stupid, but I followed instructions just as I read them and didn’t get very good results so I personally think I needed to see someone who knew what they were doing first. I might have figured it out if I experimented on some spare material, but I didn’t want to mess the stick up anymore, so I just stopped.
If you already put the clear coat on and didn’t like it- YES you can fix it. Just sand it down with 600 or so grit wet/dry until you get down to the paint (gloss will come off as a whitish material, when you get down to the paint, you’ll see the paint color coming off onto the sand paper), smooth out with 1000 grit or so, and then just put a few more coats of your vinyl dye on. Thats how I fixed mine and it looked perfect int the end.
I used Duplicolor and did not one bit of sanding on the sides. It worked perfectly.
I used the flat black Duplicolor and when it was done, it was damn near perfect match to the base black on the TE stick.
you covered a lot i was curious about. thanks man 
Newbie here on SRK and this is my first post! Haha anyway, has anyone tried to airbrush their case yet? I’m just wondering how acrylic modelling paints like Tamiya or Gunze Sanyo will work. I do quite a bit of model building, so I’m pretty good with an airbrush. I was thinking of maybe doing some pinstriping or some kind of shading, smoke effect on the FS3 I’m beginning to mod. Thanks for any info!
i used duplicolor vinyl was my first time spray painting anything ever was extremely easy to use had lil drips here and there but it all went away after it dried up
After painting my first TE stick, I can definitely attest to how easy it is to work with vinyl dye. However I’d like to paint my next stick purple (to go along with the Joker theme I have designed), and this color isn’t available as a vinyl dye. So it seems like I’ll have to use Krylon Fusion–does anybody have any tips for working with it?
Thanks in advance.
Edit: Let me take a look at this guide posted on the first page…O.o
I’d still like to hear some personal experiences, though.
Does anyone have vinyl dye starting to crack after some use?
My white is starting to crack all over the place… it did a white dye and clear coat on it to prevent it from getting dirty, but after a good few months worth of use, its now starting to crack…
Well, i’m no painting expert, but I can tell you my experience. For me, Vinyl Dye was almost idiot proof (i guess that means i’m calling myself an idiot?). I felt like I could really do no wrong with that stuff. Of course you can screw up but you really have to try or have no idea how to use any kind of spray paint, haha.
With the Krylon, it’s also pretty easy, but you just have to pay more attention to following the general directions. Like mind the distance you are spraying from, keep the can moving evenly, and give it enough time to dry (which is true of vinyl dye too, but that time just seems to be a lot shorter).
The krylon can also crack or peel with enough use, so you may have to touch it up again later. That happened to me before, where my vinyl dye job had no issues whatsoever with the same amount of use.
(just put this quote in too, because the last part of my experience above answers for me)
A friend just got done spraying my T5 case with VHT vinyl dye; however, there are some spots that are a little darker, so it’s going to need another coat. The instructions on the can recommend waiting an entire week before touching it again, but I assume that’s an overestimation. Question: How long should he really wait before putting another coat on?
I don’t know if there’s a difference between brands or what, but one week sounds crazy… I put my coats on like 5-10 min apart this stuff dries incredibly fast.
I didn’t see anything like this on the vinyl dye I used (duplicolor) , but when I used Krylon Fusion I think it said something like you should either put subsequent coats on within 10 min or one week. I’m not sure why but it sounds like if you let it start drying past a certain time then you need to wait longer before doing a new coat.
Personally I’ve never paid much attention to that and I haven’t had any issues, but like I said- with the duplicolor vinyl dye I used I didn’t see anything like that in the instructions.
Thanks for the quick reply! I don’t think it would hurt to put on another coat tomorrow, but I’ll wait to be on the safe side. I’ve got a week to wait before my order from Lizard Lick arrives, so I may as well. :rock:
anyone have problems with colors bleeding? and stuck on drizzle spots with Vinyl Dye? Think i might have to sand down a little and reapply a few more new light coats
bollocks to it. after reading this whole thread im just going to give the vinyl dye 24 hours to dry before i take off the masking, remove any residue and put on my plexi/artwork. then i’ll leave it sitting for another day.
Glad I found this topic.
I would like to change the color of the Bezel. Can I just spray the Bezel with Medium Blue Dupli-Color Vinyl paint and it’ll turn out fine? The current color won’t mix with the Vinyl dye?
Bump
It’s not really dye, you’ll be fine.
