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Played around with the dash a little while the heat wave was in progress. Not much has been done other than practice pieces yet but have some observations. Don't know if anyone else noticed this or if I've done something wrong but find it interesting.

To start with, had the dash beadblasted resulting in a nice shiny silvery finish -- appears to be made of cold rolled steel.
When I got the pieces home degreased with some GIT cleaner/degreaser and put on a coat of GIT's red oxide primer.

Wanted to keep the good product for the side to be worked on so primed the rear with Rustoleum "Professional" red oxide primer. GIT product is more red compared to the Rustoleum. Quite the difference in shade.

Following their advice started with a small item to use as a test piece for drying time and pattern. Primed and let dry a day and then coated those with the base color Carpathian Elm #1 and let dry another day. The basecoat says high viscosity so it must really be thin. Went on smooth and dried nicely though. Note the different shade after it dried.

Printed with the Carpathian Elm printing ink. Quite the different finish look resulting from the different primers. Their primer is the small square piece with notch, Rustoleum is the larger rectangle. The printed result is noticeably lighter using their primer vs Rustoleum. Will be interesting to see how the toner coat changes it in a day or so.

Wasn't quite expecting the difference in primer to make such a big difference in the way the finish piece looks and not sure now which one I like better. At any rate, will either be a very interesting or very frustrating experience by the time it's over with.

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The GTI paint is a base coat, rather than a primer. I use Rustoleum red primer, then put the GTI base color coat over that. In my experience, the GTI paint will allow you to wipe off the ink without a residue if you are not happy with the results, whereas paint that you can get locally, i.e Rustoleum smears. There are about 8 or so different base colors, allowing for an entirely different look of the finished product.

For example, here is a dash from a 34 Chevy I did earlier this year. It used the same burl pattern, but a different color base coat; more yellowish and so looks much different than the Packard version.

Be sure to wait at least two days before you try the toner. I wiped off the first job I did because the ink hadn't cured enough. Once the toner is dry, then give it two or three coats of clear, and buff it with a good polishing compound.

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I would have expected the base color to have significant influence on the final color. Different looking bases would lead (I think) to some of the Carpathian Elm to be Bulgarian Red Oak.....

I'll be curious to see how this finishes out, and would love to know more about the process.....

The GTI paint is a base coat, rather than a primer. I use Rustoleum red primer, then put the GTI base color coat over that.

That is exactly what I did only used the GIT primer and Rustoleum primer. The more reddish primer is the one supplied by GIT and the brownish one is Rustoleum. The reason for the two trial pieces was I wanted to see if there was a difference in how the base coat stuck and didn't want to have to order more primer from GIT if local item would work.

I was just surprised to see how much the base coat differs when placed over the different shade primers. I can only speculate that the base coat is fairly thin or transparent -- or else I didn't put it on nearly heavy enough.

I guess I was too cheap to buy the GTI primer and have only used Rustoleum. You are correct, the GTI paint is super thin and borders on translucent. I usually have to put on about three coats for good coverage.

Pat, you can go to the GTI webpage and watch the videos on how the process works. Very informative, except that they make it look very easy!

I sure wouldn't have expected the different result just based on a different shade of primer. I'm really looking forward to seeing your experience with the full dashboard. I have my '41 Limo dashboard to do and I was toying with the idea of taking the easy way out and just painting it to match the lower body color I end up selecting. Your two samples of Carpathian Elm ink look really good with either the brown or red undertone. If you are happy with the end result, I guess I'll take a stab at it too.

Thanks for posting your test results.

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I'd love to, but can't find it. You can't believe how many outfits use GTI as an acronym of some sort. Can someone be more precise?

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http://www.woodgraining.com/ Believe the site still uses Flash technology for their videos so may not work on some systems not having the flash player plugin.

Rather than GTI, shouldn't it be GIT? Found this for Grain It Technologies on YouTube -http://www.youtube.com/user/woodgrainingpro

Continuing dash experiences, part 2

The test pieces came out nicely -- until the final step. Toner went on well and smoothed things out as advertised. Was actually quite pleased & then came time for the clear coat. Not good. The spray button in the can of clear that GIT sent was not great -- disaster comes to mind. The stuff came out in big blops and drops. Pretty much ruined the final look. Will pick up something locally and see how that does. Thank goodness I hadn't tried it on the finished product.

On to the finished product. The dash pieces are all basecoated with GIT product. Used about all they sent to get a consistent color but pieces turned out OK. Since GIT supplies the Dupont color code to have it made locally, went to a shop to see what they could do in mixing more for the garnish moldings. Chromabase is high VOC so the guy said it can't be sold in quarts and larger here but he could make up a few spray cans. Had him make 3 cans so hopefully that will be enough to do the window moldings when the time comes. Also learned that the color I'm using is about 90% solvent with a dash of yellow, brown and white so extremely thin to almost transparent. That we had already figured out -- hence the difference the primers made. What I didn't know is according to the Dupont formulation info, red is one of the worst colors to use as the primer under that color. Gray is what they recommend. Too late to change now and will have to continue red with the window moldings to have things consistent. I'll do the Rustoleum red which is slightly darker so a slight mismatch won't show as easily with the separation.

Made the first stab at actually printing the dash. As David or Joe have said, it's not as easy as their video's make it look. While some parts were OK, I was less than pleased with the overall result so wiped it all off. That wiping off feature I really like. Have decided to regroup a bit. Because of the way I am going to want to work and hold the tool, buying or upgrading to only the big roller was a mistake. It is OK for the wide top but just too big and bulky for other places. Will get a smaller one on the way.