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How to paint almost anything. - 2/13/2008 7:00:43 PM

AKEP

Posts: 18
Joined: 10/18/2007
Status: offline

omg i pressed back and deleted everything, now i got to start over.
** If done correctly using this method you can achieve quality results but sacrifice longevity and durability. These are lower quality paints and do not have very good UV protection and will probably start to fade quickly. For the budget painter this is a good method but it is always recommended to get paint done professionally. **

THINGS you will need.
Red Sctoch Brit OR #1 Synthetic Steel Wool from Home Depot.
Grey Scotch Brit OR #000 Synthetic Steel Wool from Home Depot.
Adhesion Promoter, or Primer Sealer for fixed pieces
Your choice in Color.
Clear Coat.
Tools.
Well ventilated area with little to no dust and dirt.

I'm going to make this sweet and simple.

Red (or #1) pad, scuff all your parts to degloss them. You DON'T want to remove Paint, just dull it out.

When you have finished doing that, go back over with the softer pads, Grey (or #000).

By now it should be dull and smooth.

Now get a damp paper towel or any surface cleaner (not amonia based) and clean noff all the dust and fingerprints.

I used Duplicolor for everything, so now you can spray everything with Adhesion Promoter. You want a medium coat on it, not a light dust, or a soaking wet coat, just enough for it to LOOK wet.

I usually do about 2-3 coats to make sure. This stuff dries fast. Once it has dried, you can spray the color.
When you spray the color, try to make medium even coats. The rattle can stuff likes to come out FAST and if your not spray it fast, it's going to run. So try spraying it on some newspaper or something first to get a hang of how fast you have to move the can to keep it from running the paint.

Keep adding coats till you find that it is even colored. If you have a metallic paint, its best to step back and spray a lil further away and slower to settle the metallic in the paint. This technique really helps hide any boo-boos or unevenesss of the paint.

DON'T Spray another coat if you stop spraying and it starts to dry. Just let it dry, then spray another. Spraying too much color too soon will leave you with bubbles in the finish.

Once the paint has fully dried, you can lay a nice layer of clear coat (or however many you want) on your parts. Try to get a light source across from you, so you can use it to determine how smooth the surface is. If you spray to lightly, you will have a rough finish, or realllly bad orange peel. Too much, and it runs or looks cloudy. just right, and it looks like glass =]

If your going to put more than one coat of clear on (recommended) make sure the last layer of clear has about 15-20 minutes to flash.

Duplicolor clearcoat takes 4 ev err to dry. for it to dry enough to handle it without leaving finger prints is a good 4-6 hours.

After that, put the pieces back on your bike, and post them here =]

** If done correctly using this method you can achieve quality results but sacrifice longevity and durability. These are lower quality paints and do not have very good UV protection and will probably start to fade quickly. For the budget painter this is a good method but it is always recommended to get paint done professionally. **

I'll post mine later. Some on how to do this, and after pictures.

< Message edited by AKEP -- 4/3/2008 9:07:37 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/14/2008 7:13:01 AM

itgbudeev

Posts: 556
Joined: 6/13/2007
Status: online

this is going to come in REALLY handy when i start my next project. but one question... lets say i was going to paint my tank, your saying it is unnecessary to strip it to the metal, AND unnecessary to prime it? as long as i use an adhesion promoter (unless by that you meen primer)

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/14/2008 4:50:21 PM

AKEP

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Joined: 10/18/2007
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oh yeah. the only time you want to use primer is if you have more than one surface your going to paint over, like metal and bondo. it makes the color stay consistant over the different surfaces. if you only have one surface (oem paint) you just need to scuff and use adhesion promoter.

ps. and you only want to paint over primer seealer, and you want to lay 3 medium coats of it too.

< Message edited by AKEP -- 2/14/2008 4:58:19 PM >

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/14/2008 5:26:33 PM

AKEP

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Joined: 10/18/2007
Status: offline

pictures...
The paint i used

Thumbnail Image

The bike teardown (makes me sad lol)

This is where i scuffed it, its a bad picture but you can tell its not shiny at all..the front one isn't scuffed and the back one is for comparisson.

After I painted the rail and post/rear sets

This is a close up on how the clear should look like when your done. it should look real close to this too when your laying down the coat. Take notice to the consistancy of the paint too.

The finished product. Acid etch coating on the sets and "smoke" or "gunmetal" color.

The middle fearring was my guinea pig. did this a couple weeks ago.

I still have the shifter and the rear brake side to get etched, on top of that i should be having some Pazzo shorties comming in (black and gold).

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by AKEP -- 2/14/2008 5:49:56 PM >

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/14/2008 6:34:14 PM

bluej511

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You actually should wet sand after the final coat of clear to get rid of any (if there is) orange peel. You also need flex adhetive if your painting something that flexes ie fairings. Otherwise nice job but id rather get metal powdercoated. You can also try baking after you paint to make it stick even better lol

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/14/2008 7:09:13 PM

AKEP

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Joined: 10/18/2007
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you could sand it to make it even and get rid of excessive orange peel, or for a show car finish. just remember that clear coat protection will wither away with the sanding and polishing. i personally like the oem look of orange peel.

you dont necessarily need flex additive, if the part isn't going to continuously flex. i know alot of guys that don't use it, even on plastic bumpers because when you put the bumper back on the cars, the clear hasn't fully cured, therefore it wont crack.

fearrings, i would say that if you let it dry enough to handle, you could get it back on your bike without cracking the clear. it takes about a month to fully cure. <---baking makes it happen faster

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/14/2008 7:39:50 PM

bluej511

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Look at my front bumper (blue one) thats what happens without flex additive. Cheap body shop did the work and 6month later thats what happened, enough snow/salt/road debri.

And orange peel is the ugliest thing on a paint job. Professionaly painted (bought it used)

< Message edited by bluej511 -- 2/14/2008 7:44:41 PM >

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/14/2008 8:11:32 PM

AKEP

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Joined: 10/18/2007
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thats what happened to my hood on my civic (oem [2004 Civic Si]). I could probably point that bumper to bad prep.

http://www.performancecoatings.dupont.com/dpc/en/us/html/prodinfo/chromasystem/K-15945_4150S.pdf
i didn't want to get into details, but dupont flex additive goes into 2 part primer filler. all it does is promote adhesion, and keeps it from rock chips. But again, good prep, and clear, not to mention chip resistant coatings (there is something you can add to clear to make it chip resistant, forgot what it was called) that they should have sprayed on at least the lip. If that cheap shop used even PPG or Dupont, they should have a warrantee on it so you could get it repainted free.

Let's not forget that this thread is for the DIY at home kind of thing, for the cheap guys here that really want a new color or look to their bikes. If you want a "professional" look and feel of real paint, that too is an option, but would destroy the purpose of this DIY.

http://www.cbrforum.com/m_482183/tm.htm post 14. for something thats just color, and not going to shows, i don't think that it's really worth 20$ a pint (to spray it myself), plus the fact i would have to clean these for something i didn't get paid to do. Plus, if i ever do get a chip, I have a butt-matched blend that would totally hide the chips, and it would only cost me another can of $6 aerosol if I don't have the original anymore.

I don't mean to make it sound like i'm hostile, but the thread has a purpose. If someone would want to spend a couple hundred to get their bike painted at a shop, that is totally cool, there is nothing wrong with that. Quality is going to be like 20x better. To the average joe, they wont know if it was rattle canned or professional.

But that's just my opinion.

< Message edited by AKEP -- 2/14/2008 8:16:24 PM >

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/14/2008 10:27:19 PM

Lrn2Go

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Joined: 8/2/2007
From: Oklahoma City
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Hey, nice thread. Sucks that you had to type it all again... I've done that before.

Again, thanks for the write up!

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 2/28/2008 10:13:43 AM

Jump1979man

Posts: 452
Joined: 12/12/2007
From: Council Bluffs, Iowa
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I just got back from the auto paint supply store....

I will be trying to paint my whole bike here soon.

I bought SEM brand paint....I know nothing about paint and it was around $10 per can while Duplicolor is around $5 per can. Is this SEM stuff twice as good as the duplicolor or did I overpay?

How many cans do you think it will take to paint a complete set of fairings? I got 2 cans of silver and 1 can of black with 2 cans of high gloss clear.

Race Upper, front fender, and Supersport tail will be silver.
Race lower will be black.

Here is a before pic. I will post after pics when I am done......never have done this before and I suck big time at painting anything period...(house walls) so this will be interesting, I just hope I dont screw it up too bad.

Thumbnail Image

Attachment (1)

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 3/17/2008 10:19:51 PM

AKEP

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Joined: 10/18/2007
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if i was you, i'd get like one more can of everything, and practice on something else, like empty cd cases or a box.give it time to dry between coats (coats meaning you sprayed what you wanted without runing the paint, not just one pass) and you should be fine, just remember to look at what your spraying and spray it fast, and go over multiple times. i'll try to make a video tomorrow of how fast to move and what to look for.

sorry for the late response.

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 3/28/2008 9:42:40 PM

Guernica

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Joined: 3/25/2008
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thanks for the write up and thanks to everyone else that has asked the necesarry questions for the nitty gritty specifics.

my project however (that will start this winter, novemberish?) will be to swap the sub frame and tail from an F4i, strip prep and paint my whole bike FLAT black, get the split seats covered in candy apple red, get red grips, and paint my wheels candy apple red (high gloss)

my question is what is the best approach to painting a flat color on the plastics and the tank and also what is the best method of painting the rims other than powder coating (the process actually makes the wheels weaker a lot of the time)

thanks everyone

G

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 3/29/2008 5:06:08 AM

bluej511

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powdercoating is the best way to paint rims PERIOD, trying to paint them yourself is just ghetto. Powdercoating will not make the rims weaker there just sanded down, blasted with powdered paint then clearcoated and baked to dry the process just like how a car is painted.

If you want to do it yourself you remove everything and if you want it done properly you have to remove the tires as well. Sand, clean, sand again to not miss a spot then paint a couple coats let sit for 24hrs then clearcoat a couple coats and let sit 24hrs

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 3/31/2008 11:44:16 AM

dejeu86

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I would like to start off by saying I'm not trying to hi-jack this post, more so add information and give some additional tips, if done correctly using this method you can achieve quality results but sacrifice longevity and durability. These are lower quality paints and do not have very good UV protection and will probably start to fade quickly. For the budget painter this is a good method but it is always recommended to get paint done professionally. Keep in mind that if you use spray can paint alot of them are not urethane based and if you decide to get it professionally painted later the new paint will react and cause and world of problems, most shops will charge you double the price just to strip all this paint off and start over, now if you dont plan on getting professional paint done then have at it. I am a professional painter and have had to deal with this problem. I agree with AKEP's method but would substitute the scotch brite pads and wet sand using 400-600 grit sandpaper, after sanding wash thouroughly using warm water and a mile detergent like dish soap, powder laundry detergent works best because it will clean off any oils or grease from the surface. Adhesion promoter is not necessary if painting over old paint, but if you sand down to plastic make sure to use it, you can spray it over everything if you prefer its just not a must. Always spray more than one coat of clear coat. Another option you have is some paint stores will actually put automotive urethane paint (the good stuff, dupont, ppg) in a spray can for you then all you need its a good clear coat and now you'll have a higher quality paint that will look good longer.

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RE: How to paint almost anything. - 4/3/2008 8:59:31 PM

AKEP

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Joined: 10/18/2007
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i like the beginning of dejeu86's post. it's like a disclaimer.

If done correctly using this method you can achieve quality results but sacrifice longevity and durability. These are lower quality paints and do not have very good UV protection and will probably start to fade quickly. For the budget painter this is a good method but it is always recommended to get paint done professionally.

as for the wheels, i'd use the aircraft stripper, or sand it. then powdercoat it. appearently BMW is using it (powder clear coat) for their cars now. suppsed to be hard as rocks.

one thing also, this stuff isnt that hard to remove, so if you ever do decide to take it and get it painted, save yourself the labor costs and romove the paint yourself. its not like your stripping a car.

quote:

what is the best approach to painting a flat color on the plastics and the tank?

sand/scuff like posted above, then use adhesion promoter. the technique i posted is almost fail proof. for the tank, i'd at least get that painted for reals. because this stuff will probably look like crap after you ride it a few times if your crotch rubs on it. lol. it doesn't cost a thing to get a quote for your tank.

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