Classic & Vintage - Miracle way to fix bad brake hoods

I have an excellent set of Dia Compe Aero Gran Compe brakes, but the hoods were crumbling and split. NOS replacements are a fortune, the same with modolo ergonomic hoods and so many others. So while mooching around Ace hardware I bought some PlastiDip, just to see if it would work. IT DOES. its terrific. It works. The one on the right has been double dipped, the one on the left thats a bit coarser was only dipped once. If it all goes wrong the plasti dip will peel off once dried. Also if you are careful you can trim out the interior. This was a one off experiment done under the influence of beer, so no before pix, I really didnt think it would work, but it does, its great.

Some instructions may be in order. clean hood.
1. seal just inside the inside of the hood with good tape (gorilla works well) 2. connect a solid piece of wire to the inside with tape 3. pour plastidip into a suitably wide container 3. dip and hang from wire top up. 4. cut out the tape etc and remove interior plastic by cutting and rubbing. 5 repeat if necessary.

I think you could get a much much better finish if you could thin the plasti dip and do multiple coats.

Some instructions may be in order. clean hood.
1. seal just inside the inside of the hood with good tape (gorilla works well) 2. connect a solid piece of wire to the inside with tape 3. pour plastidip into a suitably wide container 3. dip and hang from wire top up. 4. cut out the tape etc and remove interior plastic by cutting and rubbing. 5 repeat if necessary.

I think you could get a much much better finish if you could thin the plasti dip and do multiple coats.

You can thin it, I do it commonly. If you look on the can I think there are three solvents they indicate for use...one is Naphtha which is what I used. Straight Plasti-Dip is great for tool handles but for things we might use it for, thinner multiple coats are better. I like it for caliper wheel guides, brake QR levers (when the levers had little rubber nubs like Dia-Compe), etc.

Why can't I click on the thumbnail? Nothing happens.

This idea is intriguing!

+1. great idea.

I posted this while under the inflence of one too many bottles of smoked baltic porter - now I see that I should have tagged this on to VoCarlos post about filling and then using spray Plasti Dip. However just dipping the hoods into the dip seems to fill, coat and bond togather all the split and deteriorating gum hoods. The coating is much thicker, which I guess you could amend by thinning and does restore some rigidity to the gum. If you do this be careful to clean the hoods very well, I used alcohol, before dipping. It seems a robust finish. I think you can see from the photos that the one I double dipped has a much better finish, all the cracks and holes have been filled, but it was much harder to put on to the brake lever. The other thing is that it takes a long time to cure, they dry overnight bit have taken 2 days to really harden up. Plasti dip comes in lots of colors, sadly no celeste. Try it before dropping $60 on a new set of hoods - plasti dip is normally under $8 and enough for a dozen set of hoods.

I can think of a few other areas and parts this would be good for - Thanks for the post...

The thumbnail isn't working for me neither.

here we go with a reload of the pic. hope it works this time

Hmmm, maybe pic is already full size, so no thumbnail popup?