What would you use to create a Mopar "gator grain" vinyl top?

[Monty]

A friend of mine is contemplating a Mopar build but wants it to have the rarer "gator grain" vinyl top.  

To be honest, I'm stumped for ideas.  Any suggestions?

Edited December 12, 2023 by Monty

[Matt Bacon]

I guess in 1/25 it wouldn’t really have any texture, so I’d see about finding an image of a pattern in black and white and printing it on clear decal paper. Or you could try an art and craft store and see what they had in textured paper for cardmaking or other crafts. If you’re careful and have a sharp knife, you can often split the surface layer away from craft papers to get something reasonably thin.

best,

M.

[StevenGuthmiller]

Good luck to your friend!

 

 

 

Steve

[Fat Brian]

My first guess would be to use a textured paint and then sand it a bit to flatten the bumps but leave the valleys between them.

[stitchdup]

you might find something in bookbinding supplies. most of the textured covers are just a thin sticker or glued on cover so they might work on a model with some care.

these are already on paper backing but i expect it would come off if you soaked it in water. https://ratchford.co.uk/product-category/bookcloth-covering-materials/coated-papers/mayfair-leather-coated-paper/

[Monty]

1 hour ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

Good luck to your friend!

 

 

 

Steve

Kinda what I said.  He's very resourceful (used to post some incredible semi truck models on here) so I was surprised he didn't have a solution readily available, although in fairness to him, he just recently came up with the idea of doing this build.  

[Can-Con]

When we were in our teens back in the dark ages [early '80s] my cousin Phil wanted me to spray his '74 Malibu couple with tremclad gloss black.

So one Saturday we masked the thing off and I sprayed it with my little put put compressor and a 30 dollar spray gun outside behind his dads house. 

Looked pretty good when I was done and we started taking the paper off the still [mostly] wet paint , , ,  it started raining. 

By the time we got all the paper off and it stopped raining it looked exactly like Marty's pic. 🤣

So,, maybe spray your surface and mist some water on it while the paint it still wet?  Worth a try but maybe on a spoon or something. 🙂

[StevenGuthmiller]

1 hour ago, stitchdup said:

you might find something in bookbinding supplies. most of the textured covers are just a thin sticker or glued on cover so they might work on a model with some care.

these are already on paper backing but i expect it would come off if you soaked it in water. https://ratchford.co.uk/product-category/bookcloth-covering-materials/coated-papers/mayfair-leather-coated-paper/

Something makes me think that the scale of something like this would be way off.

 

 

Steve

[StevenGuthmiller]

1 hour ago, Monty said:

Kinda what I said.  He's very resourceful (used to post some incredible semi truck models on here) so I was surprised he didn't have a solution readily available, although in fairness to him, he just recently came up with the idea of doing this build.  

It’s probably going to be a tall order, and most likely not worth the effort in my opinion.

I’m always thinking in terms of scale with things like this as when you consider that everything needs to be 1/25th the size of the real article, that doesn’t leave a lot of room to achieve the texture, yet still keep it in scale.

My thought would be that Brian’s suggestion would be the most likely to be successful and still remain somewhat to scale, but even then could be difficult to execute, and once done, is likely to be more or less unnoticeable in any case.

Personally, I think that I’d just stick to trying to do a convincing regular vinyl top, which in itself is not always an easy undertaking if you want it to look in scale.

My opinion is that in a great number of cases, attempted vinyl tops on models exhibit way too much texture as is.

 

 

 

Steve

[peteski]

2 hours ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

Something makes me think that the scale of something like this would be way off.

My thought's exactly.

If accurately scaled, it likely wouldn't really be noticeable.  If made larger than scale, it would be visible.  But then again, the human aye (actually brain) might interpret the out-of-scale visible pattern acceptable and look realistic. 

I owned a '74 or '75 (don't remember) Gold Duster and it had a brown snake-skin-pattern vinyl roof. Not trying to replicate that in scale.

Edited December 13, 2023 by peteski

[Bainford]

4 hours ago, Fat Brian said:

My first guess would be to use a textured paint and then sand it a bit to flatten the bumps but leave the valleys between them.

Steve's water spray idea would be fun to experiment with, even if just for giggles, but my first thought is similar to Brian's. Spray the surface with a close-knit pebbly surface, then knock it down with a firm, fine-grit pad, like a Micro Mesh 4000 pad. Get it close, then switch to 6000, get it where you want it with 8000, and finish it with 12,000. Then apply a dark green or black wash.

Just spit-balling here. Tons of variables, would not expect to get this right on the first try. Getting the right pebbly surface will be tricky. Not sure how, but a number of techniques to try. It will be difficult to get the pebbly surface suitably even to produce the right effect when sanded. Using a firm sanding pad or even a sanding block will be crucial to maintain the fine edge of each of the polished-off bumps, which will be necessary to achieve the desired effect. It would take a lot of work and experimentation, but I think that's how I would approach it. 

[Mike 1017]

Just a suggestion

Perry's Alligator Products | Shop For Alligator Skins (perrysalligatorproducts.com)

[Rick L]

Hunt down and skin a 1/25 scale alligator.

[Monty]

7 hours ago, Rick L said:

Hunt down and skin a 1/25 scale alligator.

Seems like there was an old '60s-vintage AMT kit that came with some kind of reptile 🐊🦎

[Can-Con]

43 minutes ago, Monty said:

Seems like there was an old '60s-vintage AMT kit that came with some kind of reptile 🐊🦎

The '57 Chevy. Don't know if it's still in there though. 

[Can-Con]

If Chrysler in Australia used that material on their cars would have been "croc-grain" ? 🤨

[70mach1]

If you can print decals goggle images for cobble stone dollhouse wallpaper. find you pattern, size and print on clear decal film. select your base color print and apply. just may work?

[doorsovdoon]

Look up textured chocolate wrapper foil, lots of different patterns out there.. or you could try really hard on a perfect paintjob only for it to react and look like alligator skin! 🤣 The harder you try the more likely it'll react, I find! lol

[CaddyDaddy]

Darn glad I just build race cars! Don’t have these types of problems.......LOL!!!!

[doorsovdoon]

23 hours ago, CaddyDaddy said:

Darn glad I just build race cars! Don’t have these types of problems.......LOL!!!!

 Go on, git:🤣