The 4th gen interior "carbon fiber" refresh thread

[xxaarraa]

Since this is going to be an ongoing project (more coming), I am starting a new thread.

Background: I want to get the interior trim of my car hydro-dipped in CF. Without experimenting on the car first, I decided to do the 4R interior trim to play with a few different types of finish - gloss, matte, matte over gloss etc. The 4R, as always, soldierly plays the guinnea pig!

I am working with a local hydro-dip / water transfer printing shop in MA. Mark, the owner is a very nice guy to work with and loves doing this stuff. Here it was a week ago when I ripped out the center console trim and transmission tunnel trim and dropped it off.

Here is the finished product, a week later. I requested Mark do a matte finish instead of the usual glossy. I was going for a close approximation of naked carbon fiber. I am not a fan of glossy CF personally, makes the fake CF look even faker.

Close up so you can see the "weave" - looks like what they call a 2x2.

Here's Mark's website in case anyone is interested in similar work. His rates are very reasonable (just tell him Ashwin sent you).

http://www.jestercustomcoatings.com/

 

[xxaarraa]

The nice thing about this hydro-dipping as opposed to CF vinyl wrapping (I have done a lot of that for my motorcycles) is that it preserves all the texture and detail on the trim. The little small details underneath the vents, the indentation behind the holes where the buttons plug into, for instance, it's all preserved as is.

Next step: I am going to have Mark experiment with a matte over gloss finish. As in, prep, base-coat, hit it with gloss, then dip in CF, then go matte over the final. The more closely I compare to many pieces of original CF I have on my motorcycles, it seems every other weave in the CF is glossy, but the CF itself is matte. Let's see how that turns out! I'll post updates.

 

[cloudrunner]

Wow, nice mod. The carbon fiber looks awesome in matte. Perfect compliment to the interior of a 4Runner.

 

[Papparover]

I'm having some parts done in a wood grain for an old Range Rover restoration I'm working on. I'll post pictures when I get the parts back.


How about doing the carbon fiber on the door panel pieces?

 

[chethro]

Looks great! What exact pattern of CF did you go with. I couldn't quite tell from his website.

 

[xxaarraa]

I'm having some parts done in a wood grain for an old Range Rover restoration I'm working on. I'll post pictures when I get the parts back.


How about doing the carbon fiber on the door panel pieces?

That's next! In the matte over gloss spec.

I can't seem to get the door panel trim off though. I heard someone using a string, but those suckers are on there tight.

 

[xxaarraa]

Looks great! What exact pattern of CF did you go with. I couldn't quite tell from his website.

I don't know. I am actually going to ask Mark if he has other CF weave patterns. I wouldn't mind a 1x1 weave for something like the interior of a car -that may be more subtle than the 2x2 weave.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Yep, looks like fake CF alright