Custom Painting Question(s)

[Schweisshund]

thanks for the tip

Gas tank is below - still working on it :

[Nessism]

WD-40 won't harm paint if it's cured. And it takes off adhesive residue nicely.

In my experience basecoat type paints are very fragile and prone to damage from most alcohol or hydrocarbon based thinners. If the glue is water based you might want to try that first and see what happens.

WD-40 has oil in it which you don’t want anywhere near your raw painted surface. Plus, the reason it removes adhesives well is because it brakes down the hydrocarbons in the adhesive which shouldn’t be present in water based glue. Sorry if this sounds negative but WD-40 and painting don’t go together. I’ve heard of paint shops ruining complete batches of parts because airborne silicon spray caused fish eyes on them.

[Schweisshund]

Things I wish I knew about before I started

Things are coming along a little bit better. I stopped by Micheal's to pick up some more silver leaf, a product called "Simple Leaf" that works much better than what I have been using. Its already adhered to wax paper and is easier to work with. I also went looking for some templates for Japanese Kanji and discovered some rubber stamps for what I was looking for. I turned these into an "adhesive tool" by lightly putting the silver leaf adhesive on the rubber stamp then stamping the adhesive onto the surface. It works great and saves me a lot of time from having to cut my own graphics - wish I knew about it before - there were some very interesting rubber stamp graphics I wish I knew about before this project :-D

Thought I would share this since others may want to also check out metal leafing techniques.

[txironhead]

Actually, it's fairly easy to make your own "rubber stamps" for situations like that, basically you'll just cut the design out of some rubber gasket material and glue it onto a wooden block. I've seen some very nice stamps made this way.

[Schweisshund]

Txironhead - I hadn't thought of the gasket rubber stamp tool great idea. However, there was one rubber stamp at Micheal's that was a very intricate design and was a 10 inch by 12 inch stamp - way far more time than I want to spend cutting this design out on gasket material lol. It was a neat Japanese design that I will keep in mind for when I paint my nighthawk.

I still have not put clearcoat on this paint yet, I put my bike together and road it all day today as a much needed fuel petcock came in the mail which solved all of my engine idling problems (also treated the tank for rust).

Have you ever seen a home remodeling job on an old house? Like a room addition to an existing old home? It looks half new and half old? Well that is what my bike looks like now lol. I will be putting some more graphics on the side cover and front faring.

Also .... when I stopped for gas, I got a drip on the HoK paint - didn't fade, crinkle, blister, run off ..... nothing happened.

[txironhead]

Just make sure that when you get around to clearcoating it, you wipe it down well with grease and wax remover.

And about that large, intricate design.....I wonder just how thick a medium that template cutter I mentioned will cut? Maybe a few thin sheets glued together? Hmmm......

With all these ideas, you just may go into business!

[Schweisshund]

template cutter

I think I saw the template cutter you mentioned at walmart - however, it appears that it only cuts different styles of fonts. I could be mistaken. I saw another one at Micheal's that appears to be the same thing. It was selling for about $80 - I will look into it.

[Schweisshund]

Sometime next week I am going to proceed with clear coat and will post pics on this thread of the finished results.

[txironhead]

Hey, has anyone heard of this brand? Any ideas on durability or quality? At $42 a GALLON for the color I want it's hard to beat the price.

http://www.paintforcars.com/acrylic_enamel_paint.html

What would be the recommended procedure for painting acrylic enamel? What breathing apparatus would I need? Is this a difficult medium to use?

[Nessism]

Hey, has anyone heard of this brand? Any ideas on durability or quality? At $42 a GALLON for the color I want it's hard to beat the price.

http://www.paintforcars.com/acrylic_enamel_paint.html

What would be the recommended procedure for painting acrylic enamel? What breathing apparatus would I need? Is this a difficult medium to use?

Acrylic enamel is not a toxic as catalyzed urethane although if you add the recommended hardner it becomes more so (not sure how much). A regular charcol mask is generally considered okay but by all means check out the paint manufactuers recommendations. Not sure about that brand but you need to consider shipping costs, won't be cheap for a gallon of paint.

[txironhead]

With UPS Ground it shouldn't be too much (I think ground shipping is the only way you can send paint) and at the price (it starts at $37 a gallon, depending on the color) it's worth the extra shipping.

I'm currently shopping around for a decent compressor, my little pancake compressor just isn't cutting it anymore. I have a Binks spray gun, just needs a new can. I'd love an HVLP or gravity feed, but I'm too poor to be picky. I may just buy a gallon of that paint to use on my GS, they have the color I want and with a gallon of it I can put several layers. According to the testimonials page, two light coats followed by two wet coats gives the best finish. I'll probably construct one of those collapsible PVC spray booths to paint in, I'll just add some reinforcements so I can hang the parts from the "rafters".

With the spray booth equipped with both intake and exhaust fans, with the appropriate filters, and a charcoal mask I should be okay, right?

[rickt]

Pics of finished tank

I was able to finish sanding and polishing my freshly painted '78 GS750 pieces and when the rain finally stopped, I took a couple of digital pictures. The color was an exact match with the original dark blue metallic, but the look in the pics is somewhat lighter than in real life. The tank has several dents that I pulled out with a glue-type dent removal tool. The other pieces were fine. I first applied DP expoxy primer, followed by K36 primer/surfacer (block sanded with guide coat), then DPC basecoat (3 coats), and finally Omni MC161 clear (3 coats). After sitting for a couple of days to cure, wet sanding was done with Mequiar's Unigrit finishing paper (2000 followed by 3000). The parts were then polished with a 3" pneumatic buffer using 3M rubbing compound followed by 3M machine glaze. I was very pleased with the results. The true test is definition of image (DOI) which is how closely the finish resembles a high-quality mirror when you look into it. Hopefully, you can judge the DOI from the photo of the tank. A lot of work, but the final result is worth it!

rickt

[Schweisshund]

Nice RickT ..... in fact ..... WOW! Great job. TXironhead, about the gravity feed sprayer, I got a whole 37 peice gravity feed spray kit with a touch up gravity feed sprayer and a quart sized gravity feed sprayer from wal-mart for $58 and it was money well spent.

I have been riding my GS550E everywhere these past couple of days. I melted some of the HoK paint off accidentally by trying to pour chemtool gas treatment in the tank and spilled some so I will be wetsanding and touching that up.

I also found a metal leafing adhesive calligraphy pen :-D Things I wish I knew existed BEFORE this project. But you know what they say about experience, the lesson is always learned AFTER you begin.

I am a "so-so" sketch artist and with this adhesive pen, I can get copper, silver and gold leaf and actually draw out a design combing these leafs. At Micheal's they have all different colors of metal leafs (kicking myself saying "I wish I knew this BEFORE!!!" :-D:-D)

[Schweisshund]

and another thing ....

Micheal's has a WD-40 pen also to clean up adhesive for metal leafing ....

[txironhead]

What are you doing using Chemtool? Seafoam works much better on these bikes!

And RickT, nice, nice work!