Today I'm finishing the paint work on the inside of the roof. I tinted and shot the Raptor bedliner first thing this morning, and when it's cured enough to the point that I can mask it I'll shoot the header with base color/matte clear.

The roof masked for shooting the Raptor:



This next shot was taken after the Raptor has been shot and the masking was pulled off. The color I tinted the Raptor happens to be fairly close to the color of the epoxy primer I shot yesterday; the Raptor is tinted to match the headliner fabric.



A close-up shot of the Raptor on the Alpine window area and nearby roof rib. It's a nice way to give the rough inside of a fiberglass part a finished look.



After I shoot the header area, I'll let everything cure for the rest of the weekend and on Monday I'll flip the roof over and start the steps to paint the exterior.

 

My goal in tinting the Raptor bedliner was to match the color of the headliner fabric I'll be using, and I also chose bedliner because it has some texture and hopefully the texture of the Raptor would look good with the texture of the headliner fabric. Here are two comparison shots, I did two because color matches often look different in different lighting so one of these photos was shot with a flash and the other without. I couldn't be happier with how the Raptor color and texture turned out.

 

Back when I was making up the main wiring harness for the inside of the hardtop, I was thinking I'd do a fairly dark headliner, so when I made the overhead console mount and wired up the console I wrapped the mount in black vinyl. Now that I'm going with a lighter headliner, the black vinyl just won't look right, so a quick trip to Joann Fabrics got me a much nicer dark gray color.

 

This morning I shot the outside of the roof panel with epoxy primer/sealer. The next step is high-build primer, which I'll shoot this afternoon.





Tomorrow I'll block sand the high-build, and if that goes according to plan I'll also shoot the color and matte clear tomorrow, which will complete the paint process.

 

I shot the color and matte clear on the roof panel today, so that completes the painting process - all of the JK Safari Cab parts are now in final finish inside and out.







And I posted this photo a week or so ago when I finished painting the other parts, but I'll include it here to show all the painted parts together in one post...



What's next: I'll let the finish cure for a couple of days and then I'll assemble all of the bits and pieces into the roof - install the Alpine windows, roof rack, third brake light, roof wiring harness and headliner. Once that's done the only other thing that remains before the finished Safari Cab can be installed on the Jeep are the windows, I'm just waiting on the glass place to get them cut and tempered.

 

Your at that stage where all the pieces are falling into place and I know your smiling ear to ear. Great job!

 

Coooooooooooooooooooooooooool! The modular concept is pretty sweet

 

Thank you very much. Not so much a smile as a sigh of relief that the end is in sight. This has been a very challenging project .

Thanks. Modular hardtops make a lot of sense to me. They're way easier to install/remove and store by yourself, and the offer more possibilities for alternate configurations, such as roll-up soft sides or running with no sides at all.

I'll soon be posting step-by-step instructions for converting a factory hardtop to modular, stay tuned...

 

The matte clear has cured enough to handle so I've pulled off all the masking and moved the roof to another garage bay so I can clean up the mess from painting. The clear has cured into a very uniform level of matte, I'm really happy with it. It's a very nice product.

 

The Creative Garage is alive and well - by that, I mean innovative projects that talent and skill, hard work, are brought to life ( and hopefully, commercial production).
Your step -by-step show and tell will ensure that DIY will see more of these "out there".
"Imitation is the Sincerest form of Flattery"