Painting my 83 gs1100e

[trevor]

I thought I would start a thread on the process of painting my bike. Now I'm not a painter but my dad is and he is here at my place for a couple of weeks. We bought paint last week when we were in Arizona last week. Got my shop all organized and ready to go. Got a new paint gun and will post pics of what we will be using, For now here is my bike with it's first stroke of sanding.

[glib]

Well brother, after seeing your blacked out wheels I decided to paint mine and did the rear wheel on one yesterday and the other today--along with the carbs on my E which hadn't been repainted after dipping. (I did both rears first because it's more of a pain to raise the front). I just painted the E last weekend--Ruby Red. I'll start a thread on it.

[posplayr]

Apparently you decided to not just clear it........ I'm sure dad will do well. Got your decals on order; Make a drawing off the locations so you can get the new ones in the right place. Better than to do that now that the decals are still visible.

Repair any tabs you have before doing those side covers.

[trevor]

Apparently you decided to not just clear it........ I'm sure dad will do well. Got your decals on order; Make a drawing off the locations so you can get the new ones in the right place. Better than to do that now that the decals are still visible.

Repair any tabs you have before doing those side covers.

Yeah decided to paint, too many marks in the paint.. We are going to take pics of the decals with measurement points of the decals. And I have new side covers I bought last year as the of course the ones I have on it now have broken tabs. I also got the decals a couple of months ago from Diablo (reproduction decals).
Thanks for the tips.

[Hayabuser]

Cool! Going to paint it in the faster red?

[JTGS850GL]

Always been partial to red.

Do you plan on doing a complete strip of the tank?

[posplayr]

Always been partial to red.

Do you plan on doing a complete strip of the tank?

Yes it only takes about 15 min to completely strip to base metal using A/C stripper and while the thing is to bare metal, get some Por-15 tank sealer and be done with it.

[JTGS850GL]

I stripped everything when I did the GS1000. I used Aircraft stripper on the metal parts and a random orbital sander on the plastics. Just go easy on the sharp edged parts of the plastics and use hand sanding to finish off. I stopped at 220 grit to give the primer something to bite into but not leave a lot of depth for shrinkage to show up later.


What primers and paints did you decide on?

[trevor]

Great info guys! Thank you. Is that some sort of template for measuring where the decals go posplayr?

[posplayr]

Great info guys! Thank you. Is that some sort of template for measuring where the decals go posplayr?

Yes very advanced; once the tank is painted you can use some blue tape to border the location where you plan to reinstall the decal and use the template to insure that the border is correct.

[rapidray]

I never heard from you so am guessing you got the tensioner while at your Dad's place?
Ray.

[trevor]

I never heard from you so am guessing you got the tensioner while at your Dad's place?
Ray.

Sorry Ray, I meant to post that you live up to your name! Lol rapid! Thank you so much, I appreciate the the speedy service!

[trevor]

My dad said we didn't have to take it down to the metal as the paint on it is in nice shape so we are just sanding it down. And adding a tiny bit of filler to a couple of small dents.
Here is the paint etc that we are using and some more pics of today.





Sure is nice to have my dad here.

[Sandy]

Going to look great with the new paint Trevor. I hope you and your dad realize that it's recommended to wait a week or so for the paint to off gas before you apply the decals.

[trevor]

Going to look great with the new paint Trevor. I hope you and your dad realize that it's recommended to wait a week or so for the paint to off gas before you apply the decals.

Really?? I did not know that Sandy.