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PREPARATION

Either jet-wash or manual wash it. Best thing to use is a simple bucket of hot water and washing up liquid. Nothing fancy needed! The car / wheels need to be cleaner than new. All dirt, tar, brake dust and grime gone. The dip will stick to whatever you spray it onto, spray it onto dirt and it will fail, it will self-peel, bubble or lift. So, make sure it’s clean. Everything. On cars pay particular attention to the sills, trim, gutters, grills etc. All the tight little corners and gullies you would not normally pay attention to. These are the areas it will lift. If it is clean, it will stay in place and you won’t have a problem – and that’s what we’re after. On wheels pay special attention in the corners of spokes. Brake dust is pretty hard to remove, but if you do not, the dip will not stick. Remember the wheels take a battering, all the weathers, all the elements. And most importantly subject to centrifugal forces all trying to remove the dip. A properly cleaned wheel will be perfectly fine.     

For trim, badges, grills etc. same as wheels, pay attention to the corners. The front grill gets a lot of dead insects, they are particularly annoying to get rid of!

The reason we use washing up liquid? We’ve always been told not to, why? Because it does a

really good job! Downside is it removes all the waxes and polishes as well. This is normally a bad

thing, but we WANT to do this, to give the dip a really good chance to bond.

 

Ok, so we washed the car and now its cleaner than new! Next phase is to dry it. Because as soon

as you start to spray, the air pressure will blow into the nooks and crannies, blowing out any

traces of water. The dip will not stick to water. We find washing the car the day before dipping

helps a lot, keep it inside overnight. We also find if using a compressor setup, you can blow into

all the gaps, this will blow all the remaining water out. Car is completely dry.

 

Now we start to strip it. When we dip a car here, we remove as much as we can, mirrors, lights, trim, grills, door handles, washer jets, wheels, anything removable, we remove. So firstly, jack the car up and sit it on axle stands. This serves 2 purposes, one, gives proper access to inside the arches and more importantly the sills. You can get right underneath for complete coverage. Two, allows you to

remove the wheels and dip them separately, or keep them out the way, saving cleaning the off

overspray from tyres afterwards. Why do we remove parts? The weak part of any dip job is the

edges, so by removing the mirror, we dip completely behind it, then refitting the mirror there

are NO weak edges as they are covered by the mirror This works for all places. Handles for

example, the backs are the weak spot as you are constantly pulling at them to open the door,

you cannot dip the back properly, so remove them and you can dip it completely and it will last

years of pulling and never peel from the back. This is a longer job to remove everything, harder

work, but the finish is far superior to not removing anything, lasts longer and looks nicer.

Use a microfibre cloth and PreDip now. Clean the entire car with PreDip. This removes any remaining waxes / polishes, fingerprints and allows the masking tape to stick better. Now mask the entire car. All the parts you do not want to dip. We mask the windows. You can dip over them and peel, but is

a waste of dip. We prefer to mask and save the dip. Mask all inside the car, door jams, boot jams, bonnet jams. Remember to cover all radiators, A/C rads and inter-coolers. If you dip over

them then next time car is in traffic car will overheat. Once the car is completely masked, then PreDip it again. The removes and dirt and greasy fingerprints from all the masking. The car is now ready to be dipped.

 

IMPORTANT

You will already have tested on a small insignificant part (as instructed earlier) a few weeks ago. Peeled it and are happy with the product. If you have NOT yet, then you need to do this now to be 100% happy, before committing to an entire car. We are 100% happy all will be well. But if you do not follow the system cut corners, or use other materials, we cannot say for sure how it will work out for you. The problems you see on the internet with ALL dips are people cutting corners or not following systems.

Full Dip® 400 ml Aerosol APPLICATION

Shake the aerosol for at least one minute prior to application. And a REAL minute! Not three

shakes and ‘that’ll do’. Apply the product approximately 20 cm from the surface. Always spraying parallel to the surface. You can apply as many coats as you want, keeping in mind that we will need an average of six coats (two light, then four wet / heavy), but remember that the more coats

you apply, the more durable the coating will be. In addition, the more material you apply, the

easier it will be to peel it off in the future. Between coats, you must wait at minimum 10-20 minutes (depending on the humidity). When the sprayed surface becomes dry, you can go on with the next coat, and as said, it will take from 10 to 30 minutes. Easiest way to tell is if the surface is a matte finish, if still glossy, then too wet and wait some more. The product will be fully dried after 12h. Have patience! Rush it and mess it up. For wheels we 100% recommend you remove them prior to dipping

and that you use tape n drape to mask the tyres (less waste). Remember to be safe. These are chemicals you are spraying so please wear a PROPER MASK.

Full Dip® 4 Litre SPRAYABLE APPLICATION

Give the tin a good shake for at least 1 minute. Pop the lid, then mix with a stirrer or drill and

mixing adapter if possible. The better it is mixed the better the pigments flow. If you cut

short on this, you run the risk of it spitting occasionally. This is especially true where

powdered pigments are involved. Once mixed pour some into the FD650 hopper (or gun of your choice) We sell, supply and use the FD650. We also recommend a few other guns for a compressor

setup. An alternative gun is the MS3000 from Earlex / Wagner. Good gun, great price too.

A good budget compressor gun is the 3M Accuspray. Does a pretty good job, easy to clean

and maintain. Will spray the dip and pro top coats no problem. The ultimate gun for dipping though, is the TSS (The Spray Source) Pro HSE. Awesome gun for ultimate smooth paint like finishes every time. First two coats are VERY light coats. Complete coverage must not happen till coat three. If you are getting complete colour coverage in first coat you are going too heavy. A side effect to this is you will get runs. Do two very light coats and you will not get runs so easily (you still can if you are a bad sprayer! No matter the gun used). Keep the gun 90 degrees from the panel and approximately 20cm. Move in smooth actions across the panel. Keep same speed and height right across. Move in straight lines. Preferably walk the entire car length on the sides. This is extremely important you do this on application of pearls / chameleons etc. Not so important on solid colours, but an EXCELLENT habit to get into. We will already have recommended the amount of material needed for you project. USE IT. That a lot of people do is for example an Audi A4, we say 3x 4l BLACK needed. The car is BLACK after only 4 litres. DO NOT STOP. If using traditional paint, you would, as the idea behind that is to put as little on as possible to get the best coverage and finish. With DIP, you need to keep going as the durability, strength, peelability all rely on volume of material used.

Use less than recommended and you WILL get issues. We will have no sympathy, and YOU will have a PROBLEM removing. Between coats, you must wait at minimum 10-20 minutes (depending on the humidity). When the sprayed surface becomes dry, you can go on with the next coat, and as said, it will take from 10 to 30 minutes. Easiest way to tell is if the surface is a matte finish, if still glossy, then too wet and wait some more. The product will be fully dried after 12h. Have patience! Rush it and mess it up.

The nice thing about 2 light dust coats is they are pretty much dry instantly, you can go around the

car nonstop for both. You will need to wait between coat for the heavier / wetter ones. It is

important you do though. It is important you follow the system; some colours require maybe 4 or 5 different colours to be used. You may not use all the tin, but if you do not do every stage, then you will not get desired finish.
 

As an example, we have used before to create a similar version to RS Focus Green, you would first

spray the car in PRIMER GREY. use all the tin(s) of this. ALWAYS use ALL the GREY PRIMER on every

project. Next up is the WHITE, followed by the CLEAR with GOLD PEARL pigment added. So that is

three colours used on that one, followed by a topcoat stage if you wanted it glossy as well for

instance. Once you have completed your project with the recommended volume, you now leave 12 hours to dry, cure and level out. Next day you can peel the masking and rebuild the car. Be careful not to scratch or damage the dip while refitting parts. Bumpers, mirrors, grills etc. DO NOT for get to unmask any radiators you have covered. We now recommend you give the car a coat of FullDip® DipCoat. This protects the surface, makes it easier to clean in the future. It coats it in a micro thin nano coating that repels dirt and water. Stops a lot of small scratches, really helps the look and feel, you lose that ‘rubbery’ feeling. Much easier to clean. Especially using the FullDip® Shampoo.

If using a PRO topcoat, you need to leave the car 24hrs before applying. Do not peel, clean or apply

any DipCoat.

 

Mix using the formula shown 2:1:10%. Several examples are given below.

GLOSS (or MATTE): 100ml 200ml 300ml 500ml

CATALYST (hardener): 50ml 100ml 150ml 250ml

TOTAL: 150ml 300ml 450ml 750ml

10% THINNER: 15ml 30ml 45ml 75ml

TOTAL PRO TOPCOAT: 165ml 330ml 495ml 825ml
 

Once top coated, leave for a further 24 hours. You can then peel, rebuild and car is ready to go. The PRO gloss top coat can be ‘flow coated’, sanded, flatted, mopped and polished. See our videos on how to do this stage if you do not know how.

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