duplicolor vinyl and fabric paint

[dstarrett]

Anybody ever try this stuff? Thinking about changing the color on a 83 bench and putting in the 66. Decent tan fabric (not vinyl) better condition than whats in the 66 now, just needs color change.

[markeb01]

Last time I used vinyl and fabric spray was back in the 1960’s. I had far better luck with vinyl spray than fabric spray. The vinyl dye looked like brand new when completed and lasted beyond my ownership of the car it was used in. I was an idiot kid and sprayed the seats in the basement, which pretty much ran the family out of the house all day. The fumes were overwhelming.

The fabric dyes tended to make the cloth upholstery stiff, dry, or gritty feeling. Maybe there have been big changes in the chemistry that lessen the effect. Unfortunately I don’t have any recent experience to offer.

I did buy a leather interior out of an XJ12L Jaguar back in the 1980’s. The guy I bought it from was located behind the GM plant in Fremont and he had a warehouse full of brand new cars waiting to have parts of their interiors recolored. Anything that was messed up in production (like a wrong color seat or door panel) went to him. They pulled the incorrect items and sprayed them with commercial vinyl and fabric dyes, which were undetectable when finished. So there have been high quality products available for a long time, if you can find them. With Duplicolor mainly focused at consumers, I’m just not sure it is comparable to commercial level products.

If you do decide to give it a shot perhaps you could try doing an inconspicuous area first like on the back of the seat or the rear of the bottom where the back rest covers it up (in case you don’t like the result).

[oem4me]

Like mark said, the vinyl spray works great (on vinyl) as long as what you are spraying is clean. Now, as for the fabric... I bought a car from photos once, it's bright red interior had recently been "re-dyed". The whole interior really appeared quite fresh in the photos. When I got the car, the seats looked ok, but the carpets ... uh, the carpets.. clumpy, crunchy, stiff little blobs of red paint sitting ON TOP of the original faded-out loop carpet. This I'm sure was done with the same type of auto parts store spray-bomb product you are asking about. I imagine spraying cloth or fabric would yield similar results.

[Corts60]

I agree with these two gentleman. Vinyl paint works great if you scrub the sh*t out of the vinyl first with hot soapy water (at least twice). I would also use a can of vinyl prep from eastwood.