Painting my 450

[pete]

Rightio, well, for better or worse the colour coats are done, just the clear coat to go.

I gotta say first though... Dale, Larry, Johnny, you guys rock! If it wasn't for all those tips along the way I would'nt have a chance... oh and also Paul (laverda1200), MisterCinders, and Brad (lulu7404) as well of course

While what I've ended up with isn't perfect, I'm happy enough with it as my first ever effort with this, although of course not having the clear coat done yet could mean anything... anyways, on with today...

So I dry sanded it all back with 400 grit to start with:





I gave a bit more attention to the front guard as well and made about a 300% improvement to the deep sanding marks, but there are still some there that will come through. I went back to wet/dry 240 then 400 on this one.

In the interests of maintaining my sanity and enjoyment of this process, I decided to sacrifice the perfectly smooth finish of the guard in order to get the painting completed.

I have enough flexi primer, base, and clear to redo this guard at some other time when I get sick of the sanding marks. I know it's a short cut but I can live with this one...



Seeing as I took so much base colour off I gave the guard another couple of coats of flexi primer as well to make sure the next coats still stuck well.

[Leigh]

Pete, do you know how many times my tank went back to bare metal?
About 6.
I'd paint, it'd look ok, I'd sand, it'd look ok, then it would stop looking ok.

I've never painted with a gun before.
So I read/listened/pestered/googled to see what was what.
It still ended up relatively crap but that may be the paint itself.

The final version that was in the outside in the sun photo is 2 rattle cans of the same colour.

You'll get there.
Patience, Grasshopper, patience.

Glad to see you got to use the rest of that blue! I liked that blue...

I've told Thommo that I want it as close to that as possible.

[pete]

So after a once over with wax and grease remover it was time to coat again.

This time, I did things differently (thanks again Dale!).

Wound the air valve in the gun all the way open, removed the regulator from the gun, moved the regulator/filter combo from the compressor to the gun, and made sure I had suitable air pressure with the gun trigger open rather than closed. The Berobase spec's say 44 PSI, gun max is 43 PSI, so I set it at a bit over 40 PSI with the trigger open.

Spray pattern and spray test on the steel:



The pattern on the left is the one I stuck with, and the coverage on that steel is actually quite good (for me anyway). The mottling there is because it's unprepared galvanised steel as I didn't prime it...

So, first coat on, and I tell you the difference in the gun performance made it stupidly easy to get a better flow going for me, and I was also able to concentrate better on technique which I think made all the difference:

[pete]

Just a bit of a side note here... this is the filter/regulator combo unit that I'm very glad I have as you can see the water droplets in there. Without this they would've been in the paint!



So, after three coats of the base, things are looking sooooooooo much better:





I really should clean that camera lense, seems something's on it that keeps putting splotchy dots on every pic. The ones of the tank are more pronounced than the others but it's really annoying me...

[pete]

And I did a fourth coat on the plastics as there was still a tinge of green in showing through on the guard in some spots and there was some of the base white plastic (I think that's what it is anyway) showing through on the seat trim pieces:



So, while they all sat and cured, it was time for the black on the rear guard.

First coat:



And after three coats:



I realise there are some sanding marks there, but they all seem to be either under where the tail light bracket mounts or where the tail piece covers it.

All the same, like the front guard I have plenty of black and clear left to redo it if it gets to be too much like that...

I also stuck the tank and tail piece out in the sun for a bit to make sure they were nice and dry for taping:



And then it was onto masking time, so fine line down first, used a bit of my neoprene to make sure the fine line tape was seated down thoroughly as Johnny suggested earlier on. Then on went probably too much masking tape followed by the masking paper:



That took me probably twice as long as it should've as I found the fine line tape quite fiddly and my hands have a habit of getting a little shaky while doing delicate tasks like trying to get the tape down straight...

Anyway, I then mixed the white ready to go and did a spray pattern test:



While I wasn't 100% happy with that spray pattern compared to the one with the base colour, I couldn't quite seem to get it the same, so I just tried to make sure the material level wasn't too high to create runs and left it at that. Seemed to work ok...

[pete]

So, first coat flashing off:



And fourth coat flashing off:



Then I did a quick gun clean (getting real good at that now!) and off to pick my wife up from work.

When I got back (about an hour since the last coat), I pulled the masking off:



Damn:



I have no idea what happened there. That's primer underneath, not bare metal, so the primer isn't what failed. I can only think maybe I touched it after the wax and grease remover? Pretty sure I had gloves on the whole time though...

Got some bleeds:

[pete]

And a couple from a different angle:



So, despite that bit of base flaking off with the masking tape, it wasn't a total disaster.

I'm thinking at the moment that I can simply clear over that as is because the seat will actually cover that bit of the tank.

That would be unacceptable for a professional job of course, but I think for me it will do.

I'm not concerned about those two bleeds either as they're really minor.

I think this paint job may turn out to be a good 2 metre job, which is about 5 times better than I expected (a 10 metre job)...

Anyway, as always feedback is more than welcome on how I'm going...

And if the weather holds out I'll be doing the clear coat first thing in the morning. The earliest anyone will be rocking up to the house is 8am to drop some groceries off, so I should be able to get at least one coat on before then and that will allow me to get three or four coats on early.

So, if anyone has any tips on clear coat I'd love to hear them!

All I know at the moment is I'm going to treat it like the pearl and do steady even coats without too much overlap and I need to mix it 2:1 clear to hardener.

Oh, and I thought hard about what went on yesterday and figured out exactly what it was I did wrong with the base colour:

• Gun pressure was too low.
• Spraying technique was uneven.
• I kept going over the same place multiple times with the same coat
• Spray fan was too narrow.

[pete]

Pete, do you know how many times my tank went back to bare metal?
About 6.
I'd paint, it'd look ok, I'd sand, it'd look ok, then it would stop looking ok.

I've never painted with a gun before.
So I read/listened/pestered/googled to see what was what.
It still ended up relatively crap but that may be the paint itself.

The final version that was in the outside in the sun photo is 2 rattle cans of the same colour.

You'll get there.
Patience, Grasshopper, patience.


I've told Thommo that I want it as close to that as possible.

I recall you doing the tank more than once... I know the feeling now! At least I only had to do mine twice and the second wasn't bare metal. I think I would've gone further 'round the bend if I had to strip it again... and yes patience is definitely the key!

I expected to have clear coat on by yesterday at the latest... wasn't I wrong about that!

Anyways, yeah glad you told Thommo that coz it is a real nice shade of blue that one...

[Flyboy]

Pete, now you cookin' with gas, that is looking a hundred times better, see, what did I tell you, the clear is really going to bring it out and make it shine.

[pete]

Pete, now you cookin' with gas, that is looking a hundred times better, see, what did I tell you, the clear is really going to bring it out and make it shine.

Cheers Stan, I really hope so!

That base colour isn't quite perfect and there is still a very small amount of mottling going on, but it's really close to being right so I'm happy with that.

At the moment I'm just crossing my fingers that the weather will cooperate in the morning. I only need about an hour of good weather between 7:30 and 8:30...

[pete]

Actually here's a silly question... do I use wax and grease remover before the clear coat or is just the tack cloth ok? I thought just tacking was right but thought I'd best check...

[SVSooke]

Just the tack cloth.If you have wax or gease now you've got some real problems

[pete]

Just the tack cloth.If you have wax or gease now you've got some real problems

Cheers Greg, that's what I thought... best to be safe than sorry though!

[rustybronco]

Pete, first of all congratulations on making it this far. quite a learning curve to get to this point, yet when you think about it, quite a simple process. now all you need is years and years of practice at it. oh, and some good equipment would be nice. yes-sir-ree-bob, you can paint at home with 'marginal at best' equipment.

you ready can't imagine how happy I'm am for you on what you have accomplished so far.

a couple more pointers if I may...

first, if you let the paint sit for a bit more, tape off that white near where the red base got pulled off by the tape, then take a bit of cardboard stock and make a small cutout the size of the damaged area to spray through, take your smallest touch up gun and shoot some paint through that cardboard held off the surface 25mm or so.

second, when this is all over and done with, read up on how to do a 'drop coat' as your final pass. that might help even up the metallic a bit.

or just invest in a good paint gun...

***edit***

clear coating tips? clean your gun REALLY well before shooting clear! it would be a pain in the arse the see some speck of red still hidden in the confines of your gun finding it's way out the tip and showing up over those pretty white stripes of yours.

All I know at the moment is I'm going to treat it like the pearl and do steady even coats without too much overlap

You need to overlap each pass around 40~50%. be careful not to pile it on at one time else it might run. you might even think about 'practicing' on the front mud guard to get a feel for how it applies.

make sure everything is seated and tightened properly and get that gun's spray pattern to open up before you even think of shooting paint. also, don't be afraid to crank up the pressure a few psi if you need to. I ran the $10 harbor freight gun I reviewed at 55 psi yep, they're cheap but you can make 'em work reasonably well if you eff with them long enough.

oh and uh, you do know why they label those cheap guns HVLP don't you? it's because there's not enough room on the handle to write reduced pressure and if there was, I doubt they could spell it anyway. (j/K)

[pete]

Pete, first of all congratulations on making it this far. quite a learning curve to get to this point, yet when you think about it, quite a simple process. now all you need is years and years of practice at it. oh, and some good equipment would be nice. yes-sir-ree-bob, you can paint at home with 'marginal at best' equipment.

you ready can't imagine how happy I'm am for you on what you have accomplished so far.

Thanks Dale, I really appreciate the compliment, but don't forget you had a large hand in getting it to this point

I must say I'm quite happy with it myself and it is better (so far) than I thought I could do.

It is quite a simple process too, but a careful, methodical, patient process also. I really do admire the effort and patience put in by all you guys who do this frequently and/or for a living, you have my utmost respect!

a couple more pointers if I may...

first, if you let the paint sit for a bit more, tape off that white near where the red base got pulled off by the tape, then take a bit of cardboard stock and make a small cutout the size of the damaged area to spray through, take your smallest touch up gun and shoot some paint through that cardboard held off the surface 25mm or so.

That makes sense and I have 0.8mm gun there which I can clean up and get ready pretty quickly, and I have plenty of cardboard sitting around in there. I shall give that a shot first before the clear...

second, when this is all over and done with, read up on how to do a 'drop coat' as your final pass. that might help even up the metallic a bit.

or just invest in a good paint gun...

Haha trust me if I decide to do this again (besides redoing the front guard) a new gun will be high on my priority list...

***edit***

clear coating tips? clean your gun REALLY well before shooting clear! it would be a pain in the arse the see some speck of red still hidden in the confines of your gun finding it's way out the tip and showing up over those pretty white stripes of yours.

That's one thing I have down pat now... I can clean that gun like shiny new in only a few minutes now If only I could get the 1.7mm gun to look the same...

You need to overlap each pass around 40~50%. be careful not to pile it on at one time else it might run. you might even think about 'practicing' on the front mud guard to get a feel for how it applies.

make sure everything is seated and tightened properly and get that gun's spray pattern to open up before you even think of shooting paint. also, don't be afraid to crank up the pressure a few psi if you need to. I ran the $10 harbor freight gun I reviewed at 55 psi yep, they're cheap but you can make 'em work reasonably well if you eff with them long enough.

Cool, I think I can cope with that

55 PSI hey? Wow! The clear does say 55 PSI on the tech. sheet but I'm not sure if I'm game to go that far... might go to 50 and keep my fingers crossed... actually make that toes, crossing fingers won't work too well while spraying!

oh and uh, you do know why they label those cheap guns HVLP don't you? it's because there's not enough room on the handle to write reduced pressure and if there was, I doubt they could spell it anyway. (j/K)

Hahahahhaa I like it... and I reckon there's some truth there...