Inspired to fix and paint Kat's nose.

[Arronduke]

After reading the great threads of painting I have decided to have a go.
All help appreciated.

I want to put flush mounted indicators so my guess is fill the holes with fiberglass and paint. Sound easy.
Right I have only ever used a spray can, all ways have paint runs and are very impatient.

So all in all I have the perfect start to doing a real job.

[Arronduke]

another picture.



Ok where do I start? Grinder to remove the bog?

[jbird7262]

Thats an easy repair, you need some fibreglass matt (thicker 1/8") or fibreglass cloth, fibreglass resin and hardner, a few wooden paint paddles for mixing, small stiff bristle brushes, container for mixing ( 1/2 soda bottle) cut lenthwise,or any throw away container. Tools: small grinder(angle) or drill with grinder attachment, 36grit grinding disc, assorted sand paper, primer, bodyfiller.
If your part is fibreglass, abs or smc the above kit will fix it.
You need to grind the back side of the area to expose the strands and rough up the area so the patch will adhear, the outside, you will do the same but only rough up the repair area and remove a small amount of top surface. You want to extend your repair area a couple of inches beyond the hole and cracks. before you apply your patches, make sure that the area is dust free. On the inside area, cut a piece of matt about 3/4"- 1" larger than the repair, mix resin per instructions, usually about 15 drops hardener to an ounce or so of resin, the resin will turn kind of purple color when mixed. Cover the outside with a strip of masking tape, this way you can force the matt towards the outside area of repair. saturate the patch in the resin, the material is white to start with, when it looks greyish apply the patch to the prepped area, use the stiff brush to squish out any air bubbles, you will see them go away as you apply pressure on the patch, it won't take much, brush a little bit of resin over the repaired area and walk away, set the part out in the sun for about an hour, the hardener starts a chemical reaction which starts to cure the product, check on it, it should become stiff, when it is you can remove the tape from the outside, once dry you can repeat the process on the outside, depending on how much of the matt has been forced out, grind the outside just enough to take the gloss off of the fibreglass now exposed, feel the area with your hands and fingertips to see if it is higher or lower, the area should be a bit lower than the existing undamaged area, or lay a small straight edge across it. You won't have to do anything else to the inside repair, you may have to grind a small V notch in the cracks on the outside, you can use matt or cloth on the outside, I would use the matt, chop some up with sissors and mix with resin/hardener to make a paste and spread over the outside repair, ues a putty knife or body filler spreader and get it smooth, Once these parts are hard, now the work begins, you have to use a polyester type bodyfiller, or finish filler which is mixed 2 parts, filler/ hardner and this is spread over your fibreglass repair to blend the repair into the undamaged area, the bulk of your repair is going to be the fibreglass on the backside and it will also reinforce that area as well. When you sand the bodyfiller you will start with 80grit or 100grit to shape the repair, stepping up to finer grit of 180/220, you may need another skim of filler to get the area flat and free of pinholes and rough scratches, once you think its smooth enough, sand the area beyond with 220/320 grit paper. Now come the primer filler, more choices, rattle cans are cheap, automotive grade primer surfacers are expensive and you also need an air compressor, spray gun, solvents, respirator mask. There are some spray can primer surfacers that will work but you will not get the film thickness and chemically cured hard finish that a 2K urethane primer will give you, but then you did say you wanted to repaint the bike yourself, nows your chance to try it out, i've been painting over 35 years and in the collision repair industry just as long. Working on plastic/ fibreglass is more forgiving than steel, easier to redo your mistakes. I'm sure there will be replies from many now that this post has arrived and what is right and wrong.

[Arronduke]

Jbird, great just what I was looking for.

I will start to find all the bits and get this underway.
Thanks for taking the time to post this, much appreciated.

Updates to follow...........

[nvr2old]

All the info above is very good. The only thing I might consider, though, is filling the hole with 2-part 5-minte epoxy in place of fiberglass. It's more suitable then fiberglass for a plastic part like your fairing. It's basically the same material..otherwise I'd use the same process as described. It would be easier and less expensive, too.

[Arronduke]

I have made SOME progress fixing the fairing on my Kat. It was good news to find out it was plastic... no idea where I got the idea it was fibre glass?
Anyway I love a product call Plastifix, the stuff is just amazing. there is another tread where I made new tabs for my EZ and they are going great.

What I like about this product is its not a filler, or a plastic weld that really never bonds that well. I dug all the plastic weld out with a scriber.
This stuff is the bomb. Fill and sand.





And after filling with Plastifix.. takes about 10min. I did a few layer over a few days.





Needs more sanding and the what?

I am lost from here on...

More sanding.
Then spray putty stuff? - do I need to sand back to nothing?
Please help me buy a good spray gun - cheap is good but often not suitable for a good finish I hear. I know Jim has used a low cost gun and I hope he will offer some advise.
So let me know what I need to do from here?

Plan is surface mounted indicators such as these.





Looking to stream line everything. The final goal is black and silver Kat with wire rim (installed ) 1230 EFE .. (1150 installed, next project ) some carbon fibre... exhaust done with carbon fibre end can..

But right now I need this fixed and it will be my first NON spray can paint job... and its winter here so its only getting to 14C during the day.

[posplayr]

Arron, I'll add a few comments. Anybody that has done anybody work will know this. It looks like you have a pretty good base structurally but there is still a lot of paint on the fairing and none in the areas of repair. It all needs to be smooth again. So imagine you are going to need to sand down the whole fairing to get a primer to adhere ( but not change the shape or round off edges too much) but at the same time you need to build the low spots of the repair.

My recommendation is to sand back that paint till it is very flat and then use a fiberglass reinforced body filler to bring up the lows by fully covering the transition you just feathered. You now block sand that down (do not just do it with your palm). You should be able to get back the original shape this way. Might need xnother skim of filler. Now here is going to be the frustrating part, but you are going yo want to find out now how good you did before paint.

For your Kat get good quality materials. And automotive quality sand able primer will make this much easier. Now the little trick; Use a light colored grey primer and get a descent build so you can block sand the fairing into good shape. To make sure it is smooth get a spray can of some dark grey primer. Do a very dry light dusting. Now when you block sand. (240 grit) any low spots will show. If you hit metal stop and rr's pray to build it back up and repeat till you can block sand the whole fairing without dark low spots. You are then ready for the sealer primer coat

[posplayr]

My typing is hell on the iPhone. Sorry too late