painting info needed.

What i am trying to acheive is a decent pain job with a rattle can. If you are gonna tell me i'm waisting my time save your words please. I am looking for advice from step one till the end. I have seen nice paint jobs done with a rattle can, yeah i know what a nice paint job is lol. I am not looking for a pro paint job, just someone that knows how to paint good with a rattle can. I need info from priming to the final clear. Any and all help is helpfull.:whistle:

Might want to try a search. I've been mulling over the whole "spray bombs" route and theres a few good posts.

There's a post somewhere that has a pic by MYKZNME that shows an all Duplicolor paint job - looks like their Metal Spec paint - looks sweet. I'm think about that Metal Flake Blue for my bike.

Ain't askin' for much, are'ya?

Yeah, it can be done, and it ain't rocket science, but this could get wordy as hell. The more I know about what you know up front, the easier on my pinkies it would be.

Good place to start is to ask what shape your parts are in right now, and what-all you're looking to sling some paint on.

Another decent initial question is what kind of paint job are you looking to shoot - primary single color, two tone, metallic, etc?

My tank and side covers are in excellent shape, the boat tail is in excellent shape as well. What i am looking for is some steps i should follow to get the best job i can. I am looking at painting it a bright orange, almost hugger orange. Might hit it with some silver metallic flake but not sure. Any info is helpfull.

kzmarvo wrote:

My tank and side covers are in excellent shape, the boat tail is in excellent shape as well. What i am looking for is some steps i should follow to get the best job i can. I am looking at painting it a bright orange, almost hugger orange. Might hit it with some silver metallic flake but not sure. Any info is helpfull.

Well, there's two ways to go here.

"The best job you can" isn't overtly descriptive of what your outlook and/or goal is.

In a strict sense, the "best" job entails stripping the parts down to a raw state, which adds several steps of complexity and expense, but does deliver the best overall results in the end.

The other option, given that "excellent shape" means that the existing paint is in good shape and would lend itself to what's sometimes called a "scuff and shoot" type paint job. This is the quicker and cheaper route. The results can be good, but the overlying job is sensitive to the condition of the old paint, may cause some problems with adhesion, and a practiced eye can always spot it as a shot-over repaint.

What's yer poison?

Well the covers i sanded dodn all the way. The tail i sanded almost all the color off and the tank i am sanding today, probably to the metal.

kzmarvo wrote:

Well the covers i sanded dodn all the way. The tail i sanded almost all the color off and the tank i am sanding today, probably to the metal.

Okidoke.

Probably could have saved you a lot of time and a fair amount of effort on the tank - the lye core boilers at radiator shops do a spiffy job on metal tanks in a mere fraction of the time. And, it has the benefit of doing the undersurface and a pretty fair job on any surface rust inside the tank at the same time.

Using chemical strippers on the ducktail and covers cab be done, but it requires a deft touch and is still time intensive, as anything strong enough to eat paint will eat the original plastic as well - found that out the hard way a couple of times.

So, now that you're down to bare metal and plastic, it's time to make sure your contours are right.

And despite what the average lyin' eye tries to tell you, you can actually *feel* with much more sensitivity than you can see. Watch a pro bodyman working a panel sometime; they're constantly gliding a hand over the surface, feeling for waves and distortions. It's both a science and an art in itself.

Remember that any imperfections not dealt with at this stage of the game are essentially cumulative; it takes more and more work progressively up the line to rectify them. So practice running a hand over the surfaces of your tank 'n tails and block/wet sand any burrs or high spots to match the surrounding contour.

Contour sanding is best done in a circular motion, working in concentric rings in each direction in order to get the best average surface coverage.

So far so good?

For the sake of not writing an entire book here, I'm going to assume you're not dealing with having found any pre-existing bondo or have any major dents to deal with.

Once you think you have the contours right, guess again; you ain't done yet.

To digress a moment - if you want to shoot Duplicolor, then you're best off staying with Duplicolor throughout the process - get at least a couple of cans of their primer. And in all instances from this point forward, when I refer to sanding, I mean WET sanding.

You can either rig up a hangar arrangement to suspend the gas tank from the filler hole, or put together a jig with 2x and 4x wood to support it through the frame tunnel far enough above whatever surface it's sitting on so that you can get the can nozzle low enough to ensure full coverage.

Okay. Set your tank out in the sun for awhile to get it dry and warm it up a bit.

Once it's warm & dry hook the tank up on your rig and shoot several light coats of primer over it until the surface is covered. Set back in the sun and let dry. With Duplicolor enamel primer, about 45 minutes.

Primer does NOT need to be shot excessively wet - holding the nozzle 10-12 inches back to allow a wide fan increases coverage, avoids droops and runs, and decreases drying time.

Repeat the contour sanding process.

Any metal that shows is a high spot. Islands of primer are low spots. The object is to make the average of the two areas meet.

One way to do that in simple fashion is when the second contour blocking is done and the tank is dry, shoot primer over the PRIMERed areas left after the sanding to build some thickness at those points, let dry, then shoot the entire tank, covering everything.

Let dry, repeat the contour process. You should see progressively less metal vs. islands of primer.

Repeat until satisfied.

All the above steps are conceptually the same for all of your parts - platstic and metal.

Have fun.

Post edited by: Pterosaur, at: 2006/07/22 20:33

I spent the day and all my parts are smooth as glass and ready for paint. Any tips as to how many coats of paint and what to do far as wet sanding and the clear coating?:whistle:

Post edited by: kzmarvo, at: 2006/07/22 21:28

kzmarvo wrote:

I spent the day and all my parts are smooth as glass and ready for paint. Any tips as to how many coats of paint and what top do far as wet sanding and the clear coating?:whistle:

Well, there's a couple of other little detail items that will take a short time to deal with that'll go a long way towards staving off headches down the line.

Mask off the threads on your petcock nipple, if you have that type.

Also, if you've primered up to the very top of the filler neck, sand it down to bare metal about halfway down the neck's length and then mask off the bare metal to the primer line.

Since you sanded your parts, it's a fair guess that the underside of your tank and perhaps the inside edges of your cover/tail still retain traces of the original color.

Nothing is quite as aggravating as having done a spiffy job on a piece, then standing near the front end and getting a glimpse down the frame tunnel right at a splash of the previous color.

That's why prior to shooting the parts, a procedure known as "cut in" is done. That's where you turn the tank and other parts upside down, scuff the surfaces as well as possible, and feather in the new color until the inside edges are covered with the new color to an appropriate amount. This is most noticeable inside the tank tunnel and on the bottom-side flats of the gas tank. But it also helps ensure that the covers and tail also don't show those ittitating dark/light edges from not enough paint being applied.

Done those steps yet?

Post edited by: Pterosaur, at: 2006/07/22 21:34

Yeah, they are getting sparayed as well, all i have left is to paint and clear. i know nothing about buffing paint either.

Before we go getting all wound up about shooting color and clearcoats, there's a couple of other issues and items involved that'll have quite a bearing on what kind of results you get.

You may have read elsewhere that 90-odd per cent of a paint job is prep. There's a reason for that; it's true.

Know what a tack rag is? Get two of 'em.

Don't have an air compressor? Get a couple of cans of that compressed keyboard cleaner stuff at a computer store or Wal Mart.

Since wet sanding has been the method of choice, get at least 2 gallons of that machine filtered water - about 25 cents each - in CLEAN jugs.

Think your parts are smooth as glass and ready for paint? Give 'em one more LIGHT wet sand with a nicely-used piece of #600, using the FILTERED water as rinse. Don't skimp on the water. Flush well and often - you want to get all the foreign or loose material/dust off you can.

Blow off the excess water with the cleaner can, and let dry. Then cover 'em up with light plastic and leave 'em the hell alone overnight.

There's a reason now ain't the time to rush.