Blackout Grill Project

[BoyDrone]

Hi guys,
I'm planning on blacking out my grill area in the front. I thought this would merit a new thread since its a new approach.

There are threads here about people who have plastidipped the grills, I know, but I haven't seen one yet that has been vinyl wrapped in black, without edging.

What I wanted to do, is get some ideas from you all to see what you think the best approach would be to do this to get a symmetric, clean job done. I was planning on using knifeless tape, to cut it, but I fear that the cut wont be straight, or symmetric on either side. What would be best, is if I had a stencil or something to cut the section out of the Vinyl, and jut line it up nice, but i'm kind of stumped...

any ideas?

[burger320]

i used carbon fiber vinyl, was easy, just put it over the chrome pcs and used a blow dryer and streched it.

[1badsr]

replace with a roadruns grill? love the way those look =)

[someguy]

Somebody did vinyl grill a while back, maybe benman? Plastidip is much faster and easier. Here is mine with only emblem left chrome. I like this look similar to burger320 above

uploadfromtaptalk1358306220221.jpg

[silvergls]

I did a matte black vinyl on the horizontal bar on the upper grille. As for the "H" logo, I left that chrome.

kind of hard to see but you get the picture

[BoyDrone]

Sorry for my miscommunication guys. I'm talking more like how the Elantra GT grill area is. basically the hexagon grill area to be black. my emblems + wings are already plastidipped although I'll probably change that to a proper paint with clearcoat.

[benman]

I did do that space on my grill with gloss black vinyl. I had plastidipped it first, but I didn't like the look at all. Anyway, knifeless tape might work for that. What I did was buy some very cheap chrome-like trim on eBay (got something like 10 ft of it for $10 or something -- really thin stuff) and put that on the sides of that big center area. My plan was to use it as a guide to score the vinyl when it was on, but I liked how it looked with it, so I left well enough alone.

Either way, if you use the crease in the metal as a guide all the way, it should turn out symmetrical.

[BoyDrone]

Originally Posted by benman

I did do that space on my grill with gloss black vinyl. I had plastidipped it first, but I didn't like the look at all. Anyway, knifeless tape might work for that. What I did was buy some very cheap chrome-like trim on eBay (got something like 10 ft of it for $10 or something -- really thin stuff) and put that on the sides of that big center area. My plan was to use it as a guide to score the vinyl when it was on, but I liked how it looked with it, so I left well enough alone.

Either way, if you use the crease in the metal as a guide all the way, it should turn out symmetrical.

I did see your posting some time ago. I'm not liking chrome these days really...

Its unfortunate that there is no precut piece yet for this you can buy online. It would be difficult to place parallel with the rest of the bumper I guess, but I think the knifeless tape is the only way to go for this project. Im concerned about a few things using the knifeless tape though...
1) how clean of a cut it will give me
2) how the knifeless will handle the curves and corners
3) If the tape will pull off the material and not let it adhere as well as it should.

I think I just need to pull the trigger on this project and just get it done. I might take some time off of work to do it though since I plan on doing quite a bit on the bumper.

[benman]

Well, I have only a little experience with knifeless tape. I'd bought some to use and did some tests with it, but it was destroyed accidentally before I could actually use it. I can tell you this from my limited experience with it:

1. It will give a pretty clean cut as long as you put it and the vinyl down very good and rip out the filament as described in the instructions.
2. The curves we're talking about here should be fine. I would think it's pretty easy to lay down the tape with precision. It's a big sweeping curve, unless you're thinking of something more than I am.
3. The filament that cuts is right on the edge of the tape -- you put that edge against the vinyl you want to remain, so it doesn't affect the bond at all.

What all are you planning on doing?

[BoyDrone]

This is basically what I was thinking about doing:

2012-08-28 13.08.08 by BoyDrone, on Flickr

I have some other plans as well that will probably be a facelift project, so Im going to be removing a number of components to get a clean job done.