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Media blast dashboard?

CoronetDarter

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So the dash is out of the Coronet and on my workbench. I'm in the process of tagging and removing all the accessories and wiring. The back of the dash along with a snail trail on top where the dash pad ended, has quite a bit of surface rust. I've read a lot of great posts here about painting the dash, most dealing with black. Mine is saddle tan. The front of the dash looks good - no rust and the paint has held up well.

So the decision I'm mulling over and would like some opinions on is: should I media blast the entire dash and repaint, or just try to hand sand the back/top and keep the original suede finish up front? I'm not doing a resto, just cleaning it up.
 
By your description I would be inclined to do some hand sanding and feather edge the bad paint into the good paint and repaint. Just my 2 cents worth.
 
I had mine media blasted and powder coated. Turned out nice, but it is black. I understand the suede finish is unobtainuim, so if it can be cleaned up to your satisfaction, you may want to keep it.
 
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Pictures might help,would be able to judge better.

Here's some pics: first the front. Ironically between the woodgrain plastic panels, lower dash pad and gauge cluster, not much of the saddle tan shows up anyway. And the color variation is because of the lighting.

IMG_1294.jpgIMG_1293.jpg
The top has rust along the dash pad rail. Looking down inside the speaker holes you can see all the surface rust.
IMG_1300.jpgIMG_1298.jpgIMG_1297.jpgThese pics are behind the glove box, fuse block and gauge cluster. The last pic is a close-up of underside of top of dash.
 

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Thanks Phonton, that's good looking paint.

You know after taking the photos and looking at it again, I'm thinking media blast is the choice. The rust is way up in the back where it would be difficult to hand sand. Alternatively I could POR 15 the unreachable spaces. Maybe I'm tripping out too much on keeping the front intact when 90% is going to be covered by dash pads and plastic trim anyway.
 
The pics are worth a thousand words. If you are on a budget i would clean up the back (remove loose rust and use a rust encapsulant like POR15). Then sand the rusty part on the front and featheredge it into the good paint. Clean the rest and scuff, primer and hopefully locate some paint close to the original color.
 
Since no one's mentioned it yet, that suede finish is still available in dozens of colors, at least in powder coating. A "leatherette" powder is perfect for your application CoronetDarter ...

tan leatherette.jpg


and depending on the exact texture of your original finish, you may even be able to get away with a wrinkle instead.

tan wrinkle.jpg


They run around $100-$175 for a restoration before your FBBO discount.
 
There is enough rust that it would bother me not to redo the whole thing. That stuff Leanna posted looks nice.
 
If you have the whole dash out of the car it's just not a touch up.
(My opinion )
Blast and paint it. You can still get the original Suede PPG Duracryl paint in many colors.
 
Wow, this is a no brainer. If it was mine I would have it at Phoenix Speciality Coatings so fast it would make your head spin!
 
A lot has happened since last week. The dash went to the blaster, in fact it's ready today and I'll pick it up tomorrow. What started out as just replacing the LH fender has turned into a on-frame resto. The interior is out and the engine is coming out this week. I'm having the engine bay and trunk sandblasted (the floors are in excellent shape) so they can be repainted. The 500 trim is being removed and the holes filled before painting the entire car.

As for the interior, after seeing some of the cool posts on this forum, I'm going to change the color from the current saddle to black. On that note CudaChick, black leatherette would look awesome. I'll PM you.
 
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