Painters advice needed

[retrex]

I am in the process of redoing a couple of GS tanks and plan on restriping them when complete. I would like to paint on the original striping instead of applying vinyl decals. My question is that what is the best method or procedure for applying the striping. I have an airbrush and lettering enamel paint as well as profession striping tape and lettering brushes. I have seen as, as we all have, how the professionals on Biker Build Off and American Chopper do it. I have seen them lay out the stripes by hand and also use adheasive masking paper and cut out the patterns. I would like to get a professionals opinion on the easiest method for an amature to use with success. Just as an FYI I am looking to reproduce the colors and pattern for an 81 GS11 with black bodywork and the orange and red striping. Thanks for your input.

[Tom MLC]

When I had my '80 GS1100 painted I had the stripes painted in. It's the current BOM on the GSR home page. (I know it says shes an '81, but shes really an '80) Anyway, I had it done professionally, and the paint job wound up costing me big bucks. If you have the skills to do it yourself, you'll have lots of beer money left over. Best advise I could give you is to get a hunk of metal, or a junk tank, and experiment a few times. There's a "how-to" in the garage section with tips on doing a rattle can paint job. You should check that out. How about posting your do & don'ts as your project evolves. We can learn from your experiences.

[paul56]

I would not go with the rattle can job. I did that on my bike. Looked great until I went to the gas station, then as soon as the drops of gas hit the tank it ate right through the clear coat. Next time I'll spend the money and have a body shop do it. The rattle can clear coat does not have hardener in it to protect it from the gasoline.

[Tom MLC]

The rattle can clear coat does not have hardener in it to protect it from the gasoline.

Depends on what kind of paint you use. Stay away from enamels from the hardware store. Acrylic lacquer is the recommended paint, but thats sort of old school. Hard to find that stuff (at least here in the Bay Area, where environmental regulations prohibit it). You could find paint suppliers who will load aerosol cans with lacquer in custom colors. Could be pricy, but not as much as a professional paint job. Most auto parts stores sell VHT, which is an acrylic enamel. Probably the most cost effective option. Still I won't trust it. I'll always wrap a rag around the filler when I gas up.

By the way, I'm not talking about my big bike with the pro paint job. I'm currently doing a rattle can face lift on my GS1000. I'm ready to prime tomorrow. Can't wait to post pics.

[Cyg]

Now this may surprise you, but if you look for my thread my two precsoious girls you will see it does work.

I used the dupli color system. suv/ color. four coats, then let it cure for a week solid. The next week I spayed it with effex. Half an hour later another coat. Then I used Acylic Spray Premium Clear from Dupi color. I sprayed on heavy coats too ten mintues apart. 4 in all. Now get this

I am having my covers and tank done professionally by a professional painter. It on anohter bike My main rider. (Ill post pictures when its done later this week). But I asked my painter friend if can test it his clear kote on my tank or one its parts. He said he would see what would happen if his klear would eat up the orignal paint or not. He said it didn't harm it all. So that means if you follow my methods I layed out you can rattle your tank, then have a professional spray on thier klear kote and now have your tank gas proof.

I will post pictures of both bikes when they are done. Then you all can be the judges.

[retrex]

Project update part 1

Thanks for replying Tom, Cyg and Paul56. Tom you did a very nice job on the bike, you are a credit to the forum and the entire GS clan. Someday I'll do a major resto and I hope it comes out half as good as yours.

I pretty much do everything on my bikes and the thought of someone else painting them for me was out of the question. As for finding a hunk of metal to practice on, these two tanks are it. I have another GS11 tank that I have spent a lot of resto time on that I am thinking will be the tank that becomes part of the major resto that is still in the future. It is complete except for the striping and the final clear coats. As far as the rattle can paint job, not on my GSs. No matter how bad the tank, and one of them was pretty bad, would I do that to a GS11 tank. No offense intended to those who have done it, and with good results from what I've seen, but if I'm going to restore something I'm going to restore it to the best condition possible within my skill set. As for sharing my experiences with my project with other here at the forum, I will do so gladly. Over the years I have learned many things here that were of great value to me. If someone finds this of some small value then I am paying back a bit of what I've taken from here.

That being said let me bring you up to date as to where I am in this project. First of all it came about because the tank that I had been using on my rolling rebuild was rusting with a vengeance and clogging up my carbs, even with a line filter. It was a tank from another GS11 that I had recently bought. It was freshly professionally painted, black with no stripes and it looked good on the outside. I was just finishing up on the major resto tank and decided to set that one aside for the future and use the professionally painted tank on the rolling rebuild. I used it for a year until the carbs became clogged with rust. So after cleaning my carbs I decided to redo the tank and avoid the yearly carb cleaning. I also had another tank that I had purchased off Ebay that I decided to do at the same time. It is actually a GS750 tank but it fits on the GS11 frame, although I will have to use a 750 petcock. I did two tanks at once partly because I had the materials on hand to do two tanks, and partly because I wanted to have two tanks to practice striping on.

[retrex]

Project update part 2

The first order of business was to clean the insides of both tanks. I planned on sealing them with the POR15 Store product made for that purpose. Their U.S. Standard Fuel Tank Sealer is an excellent product that I have used several times, and never twice on the same tank. To clean and degrease the insides of the tanks I swished a couple of cups of Simple Green cleaner in each with the gas caps on and the petcocks and fuel gauge hardware removed. After a good swishing I rinsed out the tanks several times with clear water. On the rusty tank while the water was in the tank I stuck a magnetic pick up tool in the fuel gauge opening and picked up all the loose rust flotsam. I rocked the tank back and forth, gauge tank side down, and as the rust swished from side to side it got stuck to the magnetic pickup tool. There was a lot of rust in this tank and so I did a lot of swishing. Finally all the loose rust was removed and I needed to dry the tanks. For each tank I positioned them with the gauge side down to allow the water to puddle under the gauge openings. Once the water puddled, I stuck a wadded up paper towel down through the opening to absorb and remove the puddle. To finish I took a heat gun and heated the tanks to a temperature that was just uncomfortable to the bare hand. I blew the heated air from the gun into the fuel filler opening and the fuel gauge opening alternately. I left the tanks overnight to further air dry.

The second order of business was to strip the paint off the tanks. I used some Home Depot stripper, Kleen Strip KS3 Premium Stripper that has worked well for me in the past. On the Ebay tank with the factory finish I had no problems. I just brushed it on, waited 20 minutes and literally brushed off the paint with little effort. On the professionally painted tank I ran into a problem in that the paint was not sitting on tank metal, it was sitting on some type of surface filler. So the paint would crinkle and scrape off leaving the filler underneath untouched. The guy who painted the tank did the whole tank with the stuff, top and bottom. What I ended up doing was reapplying the stripper to soften the filler and then used a painters putty knife to scrape off the filler. Now I am not a professional body man, but I am guessing that putting filler directly on the metal is wrong. In all the resto shows I’ve watched they always paint the metal with primer first before the filler goes on. Or am I wrong in this? Anyway once the paint and filler was off I rinsed off the tanks with water and used a heat gun to dry them. The next step was to give the surface of the tanks a good sanding and wire brushing to remove all residual paint, filler and surface rust. For those of you who have never stripped a tank you would be surprised at just how much rust resides under a nice shinny unbroken painted surface. I used a palm sander and 120grit sandpaper wherever possible, a steel wire wheel and high speed drill where the sander could not go, and finally by hand sanding what the other two methods couldn’t reach. When finished both tanks temporarily shone like brushed aluminum. This didn’t last long as Neil Young so aptly sings, “Rust never sleeps”.

On the rusty tank the sanding and wire brushing revealed about a dozen pin-sized holes in various locations on the tank. I have heard that with the U.S. Standard Tank Sealer you merely need to tape over the holes on the outside of the tank and the sealer will fill and seal the holes permanently. This may be so, but I am from the school of thought that you leave nothing to chance, if you can avoid it. Filling the holes with something and then having the sealer work its magic on the inside seemed a better route to me. I do a bit of MIG welding when forced to, but not on a thin walled gas tank. At my disposal was either JB Weld or an experiment with Alumaloy welding rods. I chose to experiment, and I am happy to say the experiment was a success. The proper material I should have used incidentally would have been Steelaloy but I didn’t have any on hand and didn’t want to spend $50 on an experiment. For those of you who have not seen the infomercial, Alumaloy is a special aluminum repair material that is in the form of a welding rod. You heat the wire brushed aluminum surface being repaired with a propane torch to about 730 degrees and rub the rod on the surface, not in the flame. If the surface is sufficiently hot the rod will melt and stick to the surface like solder does to wires. On the infomercial it seals holes much bigger that those I needed fixed. Well I got to tell you all, for a product not designed to stick to steel, it sticks, real good. I have pictures of the repairs if I can ever figure how to post them I will. Would I rely just on just the Alumaloy repair and no sealer, probably not if I could avoid it, I would worry about micro fissures. The Alumaloy gives a nice solid foundation for the sealer to stick to. After all the holes were sealed I needed to prep the interiors of the tanks for the sealer.

To prepare the clean metal surfaces inside the tank you need to wash them with the POR 15 Store Metal Ready surface prep or just some generic phosphoric acid, one in the same. I have used both with similar results. I had the Metal Ready on hand so I used that. I sealed the petcock and fuel gauge openings with duct tape and poured a cup or more in each tank. After putting an old gas cap over the filler openings I swished the acid around in the tanks. After about half an hour of swishing I looked in the tanks to see if the rust was dissolved. In the Ebay tank the interior looked like new. In the other it looked acceptable, you don’t have to remove the heavy rust. The acid etches it and the sealer sticks to it and seals it. Once I was satisfied that the acid did its work I rinsed out the tanks with water, several times. After the rinsing I employed the drying procedure mentioned earlier. I left the tanks to further air dry another day.

Before sealing the interiors with the U.S. Standard Tank Sealer I once again used the heat gun to heat the tanks to remove any water or vapor residue on the interior surfaces. After sealing the petcock and gauge openings with duct tape I poured half a pint of the sealer in each filler opening and then taped the filler opening. I rotated each of the tanks slowly in every conceivable way to ensure the entire interior was coated with the sealer. One pint of sealer will do a 12.5-gallon tank so I had sufficient material in each tank. After about half an hour of rotation on each tank I removed the tape and visually inspected the interiors with a light as best I could to determine if additional rotation was required. Once satisfied all interior surfaces were coated I poured off the excess sealer. It is very important that excess material be poured off and not be allowed to puddle. In all I poured off back into the original pint can liquid equal to about ¼ of its original volume. I set the tanks aside to dry overnight.

After the interiors were sufficiently dry, about 1 day, I started work on the exterior surfaces. Even in the short time the surfaces were exposed to the air they picked up a rust orange haze. A few minutes of work with sandpaper and wire wheel brought them back to their brushed aluminum appearance. Next I acid washed each tank exterior with phosphoric acid and rinsed them off after about a half hour. Note that I did not touch any metal surface with bare hand for fear of getting oil on a surface. I used rubber gloves when handling the tanks. I dried the exterior and interior using heat and the paper towel methods mentioned earlier. The tanks were now ready for primer.

To prime and seal the exteriors of the tanks I used POR 15 rust preventative paint. I used it on the major resto tank with great success. Those of you who don’t know of it, Google on POR 15. I have a compressor and decent gravity feed guns so I sprayed on the primer. I used about 6 to 8 oz on each tank. I have found that 35 to 40 PSI air pressure works well with this paint. Note this is dangerous stuff if you don’t follow standard spray painting safety precautions. You need a respirator rated for this type of spraying, preferably with an independent air supply, and total body coverage. Once this paint dries it’s on your skin until you shed it off. I sprayed out both tanks and let them dry a day or so.

Once the paint was sufficiently dry I wet sanded all of the dents and depressions with 400grit and then applied POR 15 store Straight Line Body Filler to them. After 20 minutes I sanded all the patches smooth and then wet sanded the rest of the primer with 600grit. After making sure that I did a decent job of feathering the patches I washed both tanks with Simple Green and left them to air dry over night.

The next day I wiped down the surfaces of each tank with Lacquer thinner and sprayed them with a coat of Black Cote, another paint from the POR 15 store. I did this step on Friday and on Monday I will wet sand one of the tanks and some time later this week try and lay out a stripe pattern using tape and air brush on some stripes. I’ll let you know how it comes out. Hopefully I’ll figure out how to post pics by then.

[Clone]

When I repainted the tank on the Yamaha, I used automotive touch up paint in spray cans, used 3 cans of Metalic red, and another can of automotive clear coat, I have no problem with gasoline damaging the paint. I applied the Yamaha name and swooping graphic I liked(3m reflective material) before I clear coated, it looks pretty much original.

[duaneage]

i clear coated some engine cases with slear engine paint. It laid on smooth and gas does not seem to affect it. Duplicolor clear coat is another story, it melts under gas real easy.

[retrex]

Under construction

This is the GS11 tank, recently professionally painted, one of the two tanks that I started with.

http://img489.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0038pg4.jpg

http://img64.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0039fh6.jpg

http://img127.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0040bb8.jpg

Some of the holes and repairs, some of the repairs are circled because they are hard to see against the tank color.

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This is the hole.

http://img340.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0048ak4.jpg

This is the repair with Alumaloy, I sanded off the circled area around the other repair and forgot to recirlce.

http://img315.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0056ml2.jpg

This is another repaired hole, I forgot to take an after shot. There was an additional 5 or 6 holes that I have pictures of, but you all get the point. See the hole fill the hole.

http://img375.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0050lo5.jpg

This is another major hole with a needle sticking in it for scale.

http://img402.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0053cz4.jpg

Same hole, no needle.

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The is the finished repair of the above.

http://img402.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0055yc5.jpg

Two imagages of the GS750 tank with primer, one coat of black finish sanded, striped out and awaiting better weather for the first coat of clear. There are several lighting ghosts which appear red and orange on the black and the stripes look wavy. Take my word for it the black is black and the stripes are straight.

http://img106.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0058dx6.jpg

http://img504.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0059vi3.jpg

[speedy400]

hey I used to be amature now professional painter for motorcycles. I started the way you guys did rattle canning stuff, after a whole year of rattle canning stuff I finally got myself a cheap small projects spray gun, wow, what a great diffrence in paint quality and much cheaper paint, and easier. I'd really recommend those of you trying to paint tanks and such, spend the 40$ to get a cheap small projects gun and a small compressor for $70, and you can paint 1 tank for a person and your tools are paid for. Don't waste your money on rattle canning like I did for a year.-darren

[retrex]

GS750 Tank ID

Today I sprayed three coats of Glisten PC onto the striped out 750 tank in less than 1 1/2 hours. I pushed it and paid the price in terms of a little surface tension wrinkle in a couple of easy places to fix. I'll take care of this in 4 or 5 days when the paint hardens. Other than that the tank is coming along and I am thinking that this will be my rolling rebuild tank when it is done for my 81 GS1100EX. The standard GS11 petcock does not fit into the opening, I tried it when I first got the tank. I need to ID the year and model of 750 that it came off so that I can either find a used or new petcock for it, or even maybe buy a pingle designed for the 750. The petcock for this tank sits much further back in the tank on the same side as the fuel level sending unit. The fuel level sending unit sits in the same location as the GS11 unit on the GS11 tank. Although I didn't think to check I assume the fuel level sending unit for the 750 is the same as for the GS11. Can someone out there verify this and maybe give me some insight on the petcock which goes with this tank. Does it have a vacuum diaphragm like the GS11? Any help will be appreciated.

[retrex]

Under construction part 2

Some pictures of the 750 tank with 3 fast coats of clear on it. It still needs to be sanded and another coat or two of clear applied.

http://img356.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0062zv6.jpg

http://img59.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0063vy8.jpg

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http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0065zu8.jpg

[RabbidRetard]

???

hey I used to be amature now professional painter for motorcycles. I started the way you guys did rattle canning stuff, after a whole year of rattle canning stuff I finally got myself a cheap small projects spray gun, wow, what a great diffrence in paint quality and much cheaper paint, and easier. I'd really recommend those of you trying to paint tanks and such, spend the 40$ to get a cheap small projects gun and a small compressor for $70, and you can paint 1 tank for a person and your tools are paid for. Don't waste your money on rattle canning like I did for a year.-darren

just wonderin how you got the title "professional" no offense or anything... i mean it in the nicest way... painting isn't as easy as people think, so many things can go wrong, and there are so many different variables to take into account...

[Nessism]

Please forgive me if this sounds critical but I'd be concern about using an aluminum-brazing rod on steel unless the rod is designed for just such a usage. Aluminum and steel have significantly different electronegativity so corrosion from electron swapping is a concern with physical contact between dissimilar metals like this.

Regarding painting in general, I've done a fair bit of my own paintwork on various motorcycle and bicycle projects with good results. I've used rattle cans before but once I made the jump to a real spray gun I will NEVER go back. For small jobs like a motorcycle, a touch-up type guy works great since it's smaller and easier to clean. I spent a fair bit of money and bought a Sata Mini-Jet and LOVE it. Generic copies (Astro brand) of the SATA are available for about $60 or so and the quality is good from what I've heard. My compressor is an old 2HP / 20 gallon job with three different water separators on it to filter out the crud. For paint I like PPG automotive stuff - Deltron base coat, clear coat system. In particular, I use DP epoxy primer (two part system), DBC base coat, and 2001 clear (old school, high solids paint - NOT low VOC stuff). This paint is good stuff and truly professional looking results are easy to achieve.

Good stuff.