[Beams]

Not sure if this goes in General Tech or here...

Looking at tidying up the engine bay and hitting the cam covers with some paint.

I want white letters and red covers (JDM yo?).

How do I mask the letters from the red paint? Ive heard of people using grease on the letters. Ive been thinking about masking them up with tiny lengths of tape.

Whats the best way?

[NY-57-RY]

hey mate what i done was i sprayed the cam covers and the letters at the same time and the same colour. then i went over the letters with a brush afterwoods

turned out like this

This post has been edited by NY-57-RY: 13 July 2009 - 02:52 PM

[orangeLJ]

Masking them up is a pain in the arse (expecially stopping bleeding under the tape for a perfect edge)

grease is a good way (although you need to be very careful about where you put it (or your other paint wont stick)

other ideas that have come up were woodglue and some "paint and peel" stuff from the hardware store.

[najib UGO-78N]

orangeLJ, on Jul 13 2009, 03:03 PM, said:

Masking them up is a pain in the arse (expecially stopping bleeding under the tape for a perfect edge)

grease is a good way (although you need to be very careful about where you put it (or your other paint wont stick)

other ideas that have come up were woodglue and some "paint and peel" stuff from the hardware store.

Vasoline works good .... u could always prepsol the areas u get grease or vaso on by accident ... best way would b to buy sum seal and peal

[TERRA Operative]

Or use a rubber roller (or other type of hard roller) to apply paint to only the top of the letters (foam will squish around the letters too much).

[QMY-GTi]

Quote

Not sure if this goes in General Tech or here...

Looking at tidying up the engine bay and hitting the cam covers with some paint.

I want white letters and red covers (JDM yo?).

How do I mask the letters from the red paint? Ive heard of people using grease on the letters. Ive been thinking about masking them up with tiny lengths of tape.

Whats the best way?

visit my topic " My GTi AE93" and go to secound page, or just click on "photos" in my signature.
im sure u will find you answer.

[ilucgte]

I found easiest way was spray them, then paint the letters with a fine brush, works a treat.

[Rolla 16v]

I paint engine and cam covers regularly and to get a decent finish i prefer to paint the lettering with an airbrush and then mask it with vinyl fine line tape. It might take 15 mins or so to mask them but the results are worth it. Fine line tape leaves crisp edges, doesnt bleed and is flexible so it can be made to follow curves.

[LWY-16V]

wow nice cam covers man^^^ you did a reallly good job!

ill post my cam cover job up tonight... came up alright, i did them in wrinkle black with silver sanded lettering

[dorifto]

My efforts

[nknoxy12]

this is what i did after work and was goood by the next day though i must admit very rushed but it turned out really good though i wished i filed the letters beofre instaling as i scracthed them and now they need re painting...

1) buy the cam covers gaskets for $12.50 each and if you can get the 8 seals as well which cost me $25 and shelleys gasket glue for $12
2) get home let them cool down or take them striaght off and pop them in the fridge to cool them fast..
3) prepare by sanding, was and grease remover, prep by scruching newspaper and sticking it into the oil filler hole, wrap the hose outlet with tape.
4) get some high temp paint from bunnings $13, FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.... from here this is i did it my own way

5) apply a light coat on one cam cover then bake it in the oven on 100 degrees on fan forced. while this is baking you can paint the other one....
6) as you go to place the 2nd one into bake go and clear the nozzle of the can, prepare for the re-sealing of the gasket... or watch tv.. give it 5 mins
7) take the first one you did and repeat the process of swaping them in to the oven and waiting 5 mins...

8) i did this 4 times to each cam cover then ran out of time as it was late and needed the car for tomorrow... i installed them at 9:30pm still a bit tacky...

drove the next day and they had self baked then i tried filing them and it was harder then it looked... so i used 800 grit sandpaper afterward..

This post has been edited by nknoxy12: 20 July 2009 - 08:48 PM

[LWY-16V]

For my cam covers I chose to use VHT Wrinkle Black finish.

Here are the first couple pics of the spare rocker cover I had to work with.. As you can see it's scratched, the paint is peeling and also there are nasty oil stains which dont come off.. I gave them a good wash, and began to sand them... The hardest part was getting the factory painted letters to a bare metal.... I reccommend using 150grit sand paper or rougher to get the paint off the letters, followed by using finer grades of sand paper all the way up to about 400, to get that polished style look.

[LWY-16V]

Now the great thing about painting with wrinkle finish paint, is that unlike with gloss type paints you don't have to sand the object completely smooth which takes hours to do a proper job... "Bodgy", "edgy" type sanding actually benefits the wrinkle effect.. However don't get carried away with the "bodgy" sanding just do a decent job. Here are the covers when I almost finished sanding.

[LWY-16V]

Here is where I was pretty much happy with the sanding... The letters are the most important part here. Your probably think "Why sand the letters now if your just gonna paint over them anyway and have to rub them back again"... WRONG! The next step is a little trick to make life a little bit easier and to ensure when you sand your letters after youve painted your cam cover that you dont damage the paint surrounding.... Make sure your completely happy with how shiny your letters look as this will make or break your cam cover. Dont Rush!!

[LWY-16V]

Now for the next bit.. Most people just paint over the letters and sand later.. I chose a different method which i used on the last cover that i painted. Its called PVA Glue.... Paint PVA glue onto the sanded letters carefully and cover the letters you want to remain bare metal completely with the glue. Dont be shy with it as if you put a generous amount it will peel off easier after you are finished painting. The aim is that after you paint the covers, you peel the glue straight off revealing your shiny, sanded letters (you may need to use a razor but be careful not to scratch the letters). Here are a couple pics of the letters being covered in glue...

This post has been edited by LWY-16V: 21 July 2009 - 11:36 AM

[LWY-16V]

The next step is to mask up parts of the cam cover which you do not want to get paint in etc.. I shoved little pieces of tissue in all of the threads pretty much and i had a spare oil cap so I just screwed that in and painted over that.

After that you should cover the cam covers in primer... I recommend using etch primer for this part.. I used Septone Etch primer. Spray fairly generous coats/coat ensuring you cover the whole cam cover in primer. Allow to dry for maybe an hour or two depending on where your painting it and the whether etc. i forgot to take pics when the cam covers where in primer but here is one half of a cam cover in primer lol

[LWY-16V]

Now here comes the exciting part.. after all the prep work, finally! Painting... I used VHT Wrinkle Black... I recommend this product it is pretty awesome. Now for the Wrinkle paints you are to use a special technique when spraying. That is: First coat is to be sprayed with vertical strokes on the cam cover. Allow then for the cam cover to set a bit and become tacky. Second coat is sprayed with horizontal strokes along the cam cover.. Allow for the second coat to set a bit and become tacky. The lastly the Third coat is to be sprayed with horizontal strokes along the cam covers. Now when you first spray this paint on it looks exactly like normal gloss black paint so don't worry your cans not a dud or anything... It is in the drying process that the wrinkles occur. Here is a couple pics of when i first applied the paint.

[LWY-16V]

Now i just left mine to dry out in the sun... You could put them in your kitchen oven and that would make it "more wrinkly" so to speak but whatever floats your boat. I would say leave the cam covers to dry for a couple days before fitting them to your engine as the paint still may be soft and chip off when you are putting them back on...

Here are some pics of when they are drying/dried.

[LWY-16V]

And here is the final product on the car... still not 100% installed as you can see. bit messy





Thanks for reading.. I hope i helped anyone who is thinking of doing the same/similar thing. Feel free to ask questions. Feedback is also appreciated.

[r00]

i got wrinkle s##t on mine, baked them in the oven and came up really good

but know they are all dirty again so they dont look so good

[xjustinx]

I had black wrinkle too.. Love textured finishes!

This is my old bay, with retro seafoam green covers, lol.

This post has been edited by xjustinx: 21 July 2009 - 10:20 PM

[LWY-16V]

ill get a pic of my engine bay after i clean it up and s##t.. still messy after installing them lmao

[Justo]

does the wrinkle paint chip off easily after its installed and dry?

[Trev084]

Justo, on Jul 23 2009, 02:12 PM, said:

does the wrinkle paint chip off easily after its installed and dry?

No, It's like hammer tone.

Also for a better wrinkle result, Leave the covers in the sun for a bit before you paint them so they get a bit of heat in them and do the same for the can, I have never had to bake covers after using wrinkle coat.

[xjustinx]

as above.

My fiancee had wrinkle black calipers on her Civic, it looked pretty nice through the rim.

[LWY-16V]

here is the first of a total of two cam cover jobs... resprayed my brothers b16a vtec cam cover in its original colour... which just so happens to be "wrinkle black".. it come up pretty shmick

This post has been edited by LWY-16V: 24 July 2009 - 02:02 AM

[jazza02]

fark i painted mine, set them down to dry, dad was watering the garden and he didn't see (to lazy to tell me he watering the garden) then they got wet and now the paint on one of cam covers is gone to bubble crap. So im just gonna have to put up with for a while. lol

grrrrr