zudofest

Think i might havta jump on this!

stallion15

How do you "shave the letters" after you spray the vc? Do you just sandpaper the letters w/ some light grit sandpaper?

Sir S-Spec

You can use sandpaper and a block.

On mine, since I polished the lettering, I couldn't use sand paper, so I used chapstick on the lettering so I could carefully wipe it off with varsol, q-tips, and, a carefully angled razor blade.

AudioFunk

Will lipstick work as well?

justapirate

Very cute lol

And looks nice Sir S-Spec! Wonder how that paint would look on on a cars dashboard...

stallion15

How did you polish your lettering? And, did you polish it before or after you painted the vc? Also, if you put chapstick on the lettering before you paint the vc, the painted chapstick can just be wiped off after the paint has dried?

Mykizism

great work on the polishing the letters. nice attention to detail!!

Manny_motta

Great job on the paint and awesome polish job!

AudioFunk

I'm gonna paint my H23 VC Blue (:

Manny_motta

Very nice sir!!!

acedude180

Baller I'm gonna try this on some spare covers

Brettster55

while this does look good, I feel like there are better ways to spend your time working on a car

Sir S-Spec

I feel there are more constructive ways of building a post count than posting half-baked comments on peoples threads.


[/feeling sharing]




Back on topic:

When I did mine I polished the lettering first, and used chapstick. The one before I used vaseline. I suppose lipstick could work, I have never tried it.

The valve cover in my pictures was painted, and then I used a hair dryer to make the wrinkle "pop". The first one I did, I put in the oven. It came up alright, but it stunk up the oven for a while, and I had to put up with female squawking and fluttering for a while.

There were areas that didn't have a random looking wrinkle to them. Ridges, patterns etc. While the paint was wrinkled and dry to the touch but still gooey underneath, I used a battery to roll out any ridges, and a dental pick to fluff up area that looked flat. At this point I also uncovered the lettering. It won't just wipe off, the paint will be gooey.

To get the paint off the lettering, I used a sharp blade and "traced" the letters by holding the blade at an angle to the edge of the letter and stripped a line off the edges. Then I drag the blade cutting side backward across the face of the letter, to remove the wrinkled layer. It is gooey, and the wrinkle is like... soup skin, or the skin you get on hot chocolate if you let it sit. Be careful! If you pull too fast you can rip the wrinkled layer on the sides of the lettering. This is why I first trace the outsides, so that the face of the lettering is "cut" from the sides.

Once the wrinkled layer is gone you will have gooey red paint and whatever product you used to mask with. With a Q-tip, and some varsol, I go over the face of the lettering and gradually the red paint comes off, along with the chapstick...revealing a nice shiny letter.

I'll post up some pictures, or a video soon showing how I did it.

stallion15

I finally had a day off from work so I got to this today for my '95 gs-r valve cover that was stock black and flaking. Was kinda pissed that the parts store bumped the price of the wrinkle red paint up to $8 as opposed to the $5 I was quoted a month ago "b/c the prices went up." I removed the vc from the engine bay and sanded the letters to get them silver and shiny. Then I used vaseline on the lettering and plugged up the spark plug holes and oil hole w/ napkins so I didn't get paint in them, And, I used an old piece of tubing I had lying around to cover the breather nipple so it didn't get painted. Then sprayed it heavy, and let it sit in the sun all day (about 7 hours of sun). 2 hours after spraying, I used a swiss army knife to remove the gooey vaseline paint from the lettering and wiped the remainder away w/ the napkins that I had used to plug up the holes. I let it dry completely for 24 hours then put it back in my car, and I reused all gaskets. $8 for spray paint and a Sunday afternoon's worth of time sure beats getting a type-r valve cover for $300 from the dealer or $180-$200 or so on ebay or craigslist.