DIY Painting Plastic Dashboard

Ok, well maybe not the whole dashboard but rather certain bits and pieces of it.

Since the neo's interior is quite bland and boring, I have been thinking of adding a bit of color to brighten things a wee bit. I started diy painting plastic bits of the dashboard since my first car, a 1.5litre Proton Wira which had the ugly wood-like pattern on the center console.

Painting plastic bits is not that hard but there are several steps to be taken to ensure quality result. 

For the example below, I decided to paint the top plastic part of the handbrake lever in candy red paint. Here are the steps:-

1. Using a 1000 to 1500 grit sandpaper, wet sand (sanding using water) the entire surface to create a slightly rough surface for the paint to adhere to.
2. Then wash the entire piece with normal dishwasher liquid to clean any finger oil or residue. This step is important to make sure that the entire piece will be coated evenly with paint.
3. Using a plastic primer paint (bought at ace hardware) coat a thin surface of the plastic part. Make sure that the entire surface is coated. 2 thin coats would suffice. Make sure you wait at least 10 minutes between each coat.
4. Once the primer is dried, apply 3 coats of either sparkling silver or chrome paint. Always remember that the first coat needs to be a very thin coat. I used the chrome paint for this particular piece. Again, make sure you wait for each coat to dry properly. 10 to 15 minutes between each coat. But if you're impatient like me, you could speed up the process by using either a heat gun or hair dryer.
5. After the final coat of chrome paint is dried, you can proceed with 3 coats of candy red paint. Be sure to use the same process as above in applying the coats.
6. Finally, apply 5 to 7 coats of clear paint to protect the paint. At this point, you need to let it dry overnight as the next step needs you to apply pressure to the piece and you MUST make sure that the paint has properly dried. You cannot skip this part and use the heat gun as this would make the paint still a bit soft and applying pressure to this piece would ruin it.
7. Once the part has properly dried, you will notice that even though the piece is shiny, the light reflection is still a bit hazy. This is because the surface of the piece is still not smooth enough. To make it almost a mirror like reflection, you need to make the surface as smooth as possible. To accomplish this you need to wet sand it again.
8. Use a 2000 grit sandpaper and lightly wet sand the surface. I usually wet sand under a running tap of the kitchen sink. You are basically making the top clear  as smooth as possible. This is basically the reason that we applied a lot more coating of the clear paint as we do not want to sand through the clear paint and onto the candy red paint. Be sure to sand firstly vertically and then horizontally. Use light pressure only. Check your progress by wiping the part dry with a paper towel. The part should look hazy and uniformed. There should be no trace of the clear paint. 
9. Once you are satisfied that the piece is as smooth as you want it to be, the last step is to polish the piece. I usually use a headlamp restorer polish compound and a clean cotton cloth to polish and buff the piece. The result would be a professional looking painted item. After this you need to again let it dry overnight before placing back the painted piece to your car.

   

   After wet sanding

   
   

   

   3 coats of chrome paint

   
   

   

   3 coats of candy red paint

   
   
   
   

   

   After 5 coats of clear paint. Notice that the light reflected from the painted piece is still blurry.

   
   

   

   After wet sanding with 2000 grit sandpaper

   
   

   

   The polishing compound that I use

   
   

   

   The finished product after polishing. Almost mirror like finish