Touching up orange dashboard stitching

[glen e]

There is a specific fabric pen that is Japanese that is used to do this. It’s been used over at the Camaro Forum for several years. I can’t remember it’s name but maybe you can Google it. It is an extremely fine point that allows you to stay exactly on the stitch and not color the surrounding area.

[dparm]

There is a specific fabric pen that is Japanese that is used to do this. It’s been used over at the Camaro Forum for several years. I can’t remember it’s name but maybe you can Google it. It is an extremely fine point that allows you to stay exactly on the stitch and not color the surrounding area.

Is it Marvy Uchida, by chance? I had actually found that on my own and it's already en route.

[glen e]

I think that’s it...go slow, let it soak in....If you’re doing a whole dash or a whole seat, I found it was good to use 2 or 3 pens, because the tip is super fine but dulls fairly quickly…

[PA DETAILER]

Yea. I would have FREAKED on a new truck. Nice truck BTW. Can't understand how a safe vinyl/plastic product could have clouded that dash! Bad/old bottle or possibly something the dealer used on the dash that interacted with your product? Guess we will never know. Sounds like the dye was your best solution. Good luck with the pen. That is going to be some painstaking work.

[dparm]

Yea. I would have FREAKED on a new truck. Nice truck BTW. Can't understand how a safe vinyl/plastic product could have clouded that dash! Bad/old bottle or possibly something the dealer used on the dash that interacted with your product? Guess we will never know. Sounds like the dye was your best solution. Good luck with the pen. That is going to be some painstaking work.

The bottle was a few months old but I have used it numerous times. Who knows. Could have been a defective dash, too.

[dparm]

Update: I went over the darkened stitching with the Marvy Uchida fabric marker. There was an improvement on some stitches, but many of them didn't seem to take any of the pigment -- so it looks a little splotchy now. I will try again tomorrow to see if it will take several applications.

Here is an "after" photo. I need to see it in direct sunlight tomorrow. Tonight I will be experimenting on some old rags with the orange paint pen and fine-tip dabber to see how it behaves.

[muaddba]

There is an old saying "Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good"
This is not a show car, this is your daily driver car. It's gonna get dirty, and it's gonna sometimes get things on it that you cannot get out. I know the pain of doing something stupid to a new car and making it look less perfect. But over time I have also learned that perfect is not something to be striven for on something that is used in every day life.
Those stitches look near perfect to me. With each attempt to get that extra tenth of a percent closer to perfection, you risk making it worse by a factor much higher than the improvement in this case. There is a reason that the folks who restored the rest of your dash did not attempt to fix those threads. They know that they risk making it worse rather than better, and it is not worth that risk to them.

[PA DETAILER]

There is an old saying "Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good"
This is not a show car, this is your daily driver car. It's gonna get dirty, and it's gonna sometimes get things on it that you cannot get out. I know the pain of doing something stupid to a new car and making it look less perfect. But over time I have also learned that perfect is not something to be striven for on something that is used in every day life.
Those stitches look near perfect to me. With each attempt to get that extra tenth of a percent closer to perfection, you risk making it worse by a factor much higher than the improvement in this case. There is a reason that the folks who restored the rest of your dash did not attempt to fix those threads. They know that they risk making it worse rather than better, and it is not worth that risk to them.

VERY SOUND ADVICE. I am a complete OCD nut on my ZR2. But being a daily driver things are going to happen that i can't control. The only way i know to keep a vehicle perfect is buy it new, don't drive it. Park it. AND WE ALL HAVE BEEN THERE where we try to make something better, obsess over it, and in the end make it worse! The way i see it is vehicles are to driven and enjoyed, yet taken care of to the best of one's ability. Sometimes it's a question of does the vehicle own you! This a crazy hobby we are in. It will suck the life out of you. But in end it is one of the most rewarding one's i know.

[JDGolden]

VERY SOUND ADVICE. I am a complete OCD nut on my ZR2. But being a daily driver things are going to happen that i can't control. The only way i know to keep a vehicle perfect is buy it new, don't drive it. Park it. AND WE ALL HAVE BEEN THERE where we try to make something better, obsess over it, and in the end make it worse! The way i see it is vehicles are to driven and enjoyed, yet taken care of to the best of one's ability. Sometimes it's a question of does the vehicle own you! This a crazy hobby we are in. It will suck the life out of you. But in end it is one of the most rewarding one's i know.

Totally agree. That said, do you take your ZR2 our and let it play in the dirt/sand/mud etc? My Jeep gets super filthy, and I let it. But I do clean it.

[Jim w]

This may help with restoring you dash. I should have thought of this
sooner. Rapidgtaph pens (Koh-I-Noor® technical pens for precise line work)
and this ink Doc. Martin’s Bombay India ink, its lightfast, permanent, and waterproof.