Re-Painting Your Vinyl Seat **pics**

[medevac]

Like I did with my bar-end mirrors, I plan to post anything random I do to my bike.  Given that it's my first bike and I have ADD when reading directions I pretty much plan on any job not going too smoothly.  Perhaps if someone else reads any of these they can add tips or at least snicker at the train wreck of noobness.

So you get a good deal on a Corbin seat.  It looks awesome, may or may not be more comfortable than a stock one (how can it be any LESS comfortable?) and pretty much raises your testicle poundage by no less than +.45 grams.

BUT it's the wrong color.  Or part of it is.  Or as in this case the piping/welts/trim won't match your bike.  Well, you can either gripe about it even though a board member gave you a good deal on it (tried that for a week but it didn't affect the color) or you can attempt to repaint it using vinyl paint.  I choose the later (after a week of said griping).

Here's the seat on the original bike.  See the red?  Looks great on that bike.  Would also look badass on a black bike with some red accent pieces.  But with the dark blue I'm thinking of, not so much.

My researching into how to color and repaint vinyl basically ending after 2 or 3 Google hits.  Like I said, my ADD mentality is more of a ready-shoot-aim approach.  So I half-understood the process, ordered some paint, and just went for it.

I ordered the paint from SEM using the tried and true method of "they were first in line on my searches for vinyl paint".  I only had two demands:  one, I wanted brush on paint because I was only doing a small specific section....and two, I wanted a small amount because of ditto.  SEM had something called Sure-Coat which fit the bill: 

I ordered the paint here from a company called Vinyl-Pro:  http://www.vinylpro.com/page/1401797 and I was happy with the price and the speed of shipping.  Overall a good company to order from considering my small order was sent right away and delivered quickly.  Incidentally I ordered the 8 oz size which ended up being about 7.99999 more ounces that I needed.  They have a small 4 oz. job that would have worked fine.
Once I was ready I cleaned the area to be painted to remove all the dirt and the previous owner's ass funk remnants.  Then I taped it all off as seen below. 

Probably overkill on the taping since I was going for black which was the color of the entire seat, but I wasn't sure how different the black was going to be.


Next up someone on here, maybe Buddha I think, recommended using alcohol or something prior to painting.  Then to apply the paint as it dries.  Maybe this is to help the paint absorb or maybe he just likes to get high off the fumes.  Anyway I was too lazy to look it up so I just did it. 

I know, I know...painting is all about the "prep".  Well, I'm no painter...so for me painting is all about "how fast can I get it done and go back to playing Command and Conquer?"  So as you can imagine, my painting looks like a Jackson Pollock without the millions of dollars.


The paint covered really quickly which surprised me.  It wasn't the same texture as paint, more like thinned glue.  It says it's an elastomeric coating which I will assume is Reed Richards for "plastic like".  It says to put on one coat with a 20 minute dry time, then other coats you can put on a bit quicker while still partially wet. I used one of those foam brush things that are like 30 cents and sort of "dabbed" it on. 

Here it is after the first two coats.

I did another coat and pulled off the tape.  Here you can see some spots where the paint didn't get into the crease of the welt. 

No biggie, just taped and touched up again.


Let it dry and this is what I ended up with.  Not bad for the time I spent and the money I paid.  I have no idea what this stuff will wear like...after 6 months or so I will dig this post up and update it with pics.  It may totally suck and just fade through.  Or, more likely, I didn't do some stupid prep thing and it will just shatter the first time my can hits it.  I dunno.

The Damage:

Sure Coat 8oz. - $15 plus shipping
Painter's Tape- $2
Foam Applicator- $.30

Total Cost:  around $25 with paint shipped...wait a second, I actually painted this while bored on the clock at work...so I actually MADE money doing this....damn I'm awesome
Time: less than an hour

[starshooter10]

heh VERY cool

i simply recovered my seat with marine vynl..

seems to be holduing up well so far...

and i did mine at work also...