paints... cans beware...

cans suck i do believe... I painted my bike with automotive grade rattlecans... looked fabulous until I put gas in it, and it promptly turned white. I used about 4 coats of primer and about 8 coats of paint and 3 or 4 clearcoat's on top of that... did I do something wrong? It looked pretty for about a day, haha.


Oh, and howdy everyone, I feel like a numbnuts... I didn't have KZR bookmarked and I kept typing in www.kzr.com which came up as 'for sale'... I have been distraught for about a month because my most favorite website was gone, haha. I'm dumb.

del

Sorry.......couldn't help it.....:blink:

requiem wrote:

cans suck i do believe...

For the most part, but they're not all created equal.

I painted my bike with automotive grade rattlecans...

Not sure exactly what that means. Got a brand name to go with it?

....looked fabulous until I put gas in it, and it promptly turned white. I used about 4 coats of primer and about 8 coats of paint and 3 or 4 clearcoat's on top of that...

Been known to happen, but again, there could be a number of causes.

What primer did you use? What color did you paint the tank? Whose clear did you use?

There's a whole range of things that need to be identified before the true nature of the problem is becomes apparent.

Sounds like you used a light toned primer and painted a light base/solid color like yellow/green/red and the primer bled into the paint. But that's just a guess for the moment.

Start with outlining brands and colors for each of the stages - primer/color/clear.

...did I do something wrong? It looked pretty for about a day, haha.

Obviously, but welcome to the club - you're not the first.

By definition, a rattlecan paint job is certainly not up to the standard of a staged application, but done right, it can come out looking good - and be fairly tough. We need more info on precisely what steps you took though...

Not sure on the brands, I bought them at Auto Zone. it was a olive drab primer and black paint. I know how to paint, it is not an application problem... i can paint with normal guns or cans... unless it's bleeding through or something.

requiem wrote:

Not sure on the brands, I bought them at Auto Zone. it was a olive drab primer and black paint. I know how to paint, it is not an application problem... i can paint with normal guns or cans... unless it's bleeding through or something.

A possibility: was the O.D. primer a *zinc chromate* type? I'm no expert on Auto Zone paints...

The possibility is that the O.D. primer and the black didn't agree with each other.

The notion with branding rattlecans is that it's generally a good idea to stick with one brand from primer to clearcoat - grabbing cans from different brand shelves is a good way to get neck-deep in multi-colored goo...

Bin there, dun that.

I rattlecanned my tank earlier this fall, and its been great - even with gas spilled on it now and then when filling up.

Not a white mark anywhere.

Sounds like luck of the draw to me

Did you paint on a day w/ high humidity?
Back when bodyshops painted w/laquer{same as rattlecans} moisture in the air would get trapped in the paint film,causing a white haze.
Sometimes you could buff it out,sometimes it would reappear...

that's very possible. but i didn't notice the white until the gas got on the tank... and it is a mark going down the side from the fill cap.

pyxen wrote:

I rattlecanned my tank earlier this fall, and its been great - even with gas spilled on it now and then when filling up.

Not a white mark anywhere.

Sounds like luck of the draw to me

So what brand and type of paint did you use that can stand up to fuel?

It only lasted a day? That's a new record even I wouldn't have dreamed of. Normally a repaint will look good for quite a while, sometimes even a couple of months.

haha it lasted longer than a day, but it wasn't long, week or two.