Painting Bike parts

[jdub6092]

Any progress? This is what happens a few seconds after you discover orange peel....... At least its easily fixable.

first attempt failed and was a shame since the paint match was absolutely perfect and undetectable. However I had a hideous low spot that while small, was very noticeable. Now the area to blend area is quite a bit larger and have one more try before a total redo. Maybe will try today.

Orange peel and runs on paint or clear? Clear is the easiest to fix. If you can easily fix base coat runs and orange peel, please clue me in. Especially if you are shooting metallics.

 

[jdub6092]

May have pulled this off.
Started with spot painting with open paper loops surrounding the repair area to avoid sharp lines.
Removed the paper and tape and used spot blender on the transitions.
Waited about 30 minutes, then a light coat of Spraymax clear. Let it flash then a heavy coat of clear over an expanded area. Then applied more spot blender over the transition areas.


Need to work fast as I have a near full can of expensive clear with limited pot life.
Says it can last 48 hours if kept cool. Will put in fridge til the current coat cures.
​

 

[oldGSfan]

Looks good from here; I hope it sticks.

I have painted my two sets of '83 blue parts and learned some lessons. All of the first coat of clear, much of which needed cut-back with 600 grit, carefully, is now prepped (after it sat while I was away for a couple of weeks). Well, except for a tank dent that I inexplicably missed, which has a high/low area over a ridge. Jeez! There were bigger problem areas to fix, and they came out great, but I took my eye off the big picture on that one area.

I was looking at it and thought, hmm, that high spot seems like it could be popped in. I did a few gentle, then not-so-gentle love taps with the heel of my hand, and it popped into shape like magic. Then I leveled it with a little skim coat and didn't break through the base coat when sanding it back. I think I can reapply a shot of base, then clear over it right away, and it will be good. At least it's the backup tank, but I'm pretty confident. The base coat paint I have lays down so well. I just need to do the clear at the right time of day, and not do it in the hot sun, LOL. I gotta do the decals, I hope I don't screw that up.

This is tough stuff for people who don't paint a lot. I probably have spent 4x the time a reasonably competent painter would, but that's how things go.

Oh - I was at a local paint store and they had a gallon of 4:1 clear with activator on clearance for $60. That will last me a while. Got lucky, it's good stuff so I'm keeping my can of 2K for spot fixes on other stuff I guess. They say 2 days but I had a can sitting for several weeks and it shot just fine. Mabye just lucky.

 

[jdub6092]

Looks good from here; I hope it sticks.

This is tough stuff for people who don't paint a lot. I probably have spent 4x the time a reasonably competent painter would, but that's how things go.

I hear ya. Had to completely redo the plastics then got a better gun and cheaper paint that actually was a better match. If I do another paint job, it will be a lot faster. Cant rush prep though.

BTW, the steps in the OP were not even close to the actual steps I ended up following.

Oh - I was at a local paint store and they had a gallon of 4:1 clear with activator on clearance for $60. That will last me a while. Got lucky, it's good stuff so I'm keeping my can of 2K for spot fixes on other stuff I guess. They say 2 days but I had a can sitting for several weeks and it shot just fine. Mabye just lucky.

That doesnt sound right. Are you sure the activator was released? I had a couple of sputters after about 4 days with a previous can. It didnt have a lot left though.

 

[oldGSfan]

That doesnt sound right. Are you sure the activator was released? I had a couple of sputters after about 4 days with a previous can. It didnt have a lot left though.

Yeah mine was more than half full. It def was activated. I may have soaked the nozzle in some strong stuff like xylene. I remember thinking no way it'll still flow, but it did.

 

[Burque73]

..........
BTW, the steps in the OP were not even close to the actual steps I ended up following.
.....................

I've been lurking on this thread, hoping to gleen enough from all of the great discussions to tackle a paint job sometime soon. What steps did you omit or add to your original plan?

Yours is looking great, btw.

 

[jdub6092]

I've been lurking on this thread, hoping to gleen enough from all of the great discussions to tackle a paint job sometime soon. What steps did you omit or add to your original plan?

Yours is looking great, btw.

I changed the OP to reflect the procedure I actually followed after being further educated.

For tank and fender, I started with 80 grit sanding of areas to be filled, then 180 grit for the rest, 2k epoxy primer, wait a couple of days, then sand with 320, then 2k primer/filler (4:1:1). Block sand smooth with 400, then 600 grit and the rest is the same as plastics.

 

[Burque73]

I changed the OP to reflect the procedure I actually followed after being further educated.

For tank and fender, I started with 80 grit sanding of areas to be filled, then 180 grit for the rest, 2k epoxy primer, wait a couple of days, then sand with 320, then 2k primer/filler (4:1:1). Block sand smooth with 400, then 600 grit and the rest is the same as plastics.

Nice. Thank you!
I built a spray booth, or room rather as it's almost 200 square feet. There's no heat or AC there so I'll have to find time when the temperature is within reasonable range to work in. Right now it's almost 90 in there. I Used a 550 CFM negative air machine for exhaust and made two inlet openings fitted with furnace filters, and an old storm door for the entry. It's vented through the roof where an old shop heater was. So far I've only sprayed doors and trim in there, but it'll be fine, I'm sure.

20250520_112318 by Roger, on Flickr

I;m interested in how you got your decals placed in the right spot. I'm painting a tank for a GK, which is two tone brown. I haven't decided whether to go with one of the colors on the whole tank, or try to match the original two tone. Honestly, it'll probably wind up being one solid color. Either way it can't look any worse than it does right now, so it's a good one to learn on. I was quoted $650 by a local paint shop to do it. Think I'll take a crack at it and learn a lot instead.

 

[jdub6092]

I took measurements on the side covers, but not enough and didn't do a great job with them. The tail section was not hard to figure out. I found an NOS tank, so I took dozens of measurements from the bottom of the tank and Suzuki emblems to the edges of the decal. Then measured the distance from the decal backing to the decal edges and used masking tape to butt up against the edges of the backing with pencil markings on both to line it up.
A lot of prep to plan it out.

If you dont have a reference piece to measure, try to find a photo of the bike and do your best. I did that with my fender and just did my best to center it. Came out pretty good.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube that will help.

 

[jdub6092]

Nice paint booth. I made one out of plastic sheets with a box fan and furnace filters on both sides.
Eventually got tired of putting up and tearing down and did some painting outdoors.

 

[Burque73]

I took measurements on the side covers, but not enough and didn't do a great job with them. The tail section was not hard to figure out. I found an NOS tank, so I took dozens of measurements from the bottom of the tank and Suzuki emblems to the edges of the decal. Then measured the distance from the decal backing to the decal edges and used masking tape to butt up against the edges of the backing with pencil markings on both to line it up.
A lot of prep to plan it out.

If you dont have a reference piece to measure, try to find a photo of the bike and do your best. I did that with my fender and just did my best to center it. Came out pretty good.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube that will help.

That seems pretty straightforward, but very tedious.The decal on your tank in particular looks perfect to me.

I really like the decal in my '83 850G, as opposed to the '82 GK so I may mix it up a bit. Thankfully, I am able to use these tanks as examples. I think they're the same exact tank other than color scheme too.

Thanks for posting this stuff. I'll get to my project soon, but in the mean time keep poking around the interwebs for other useful tidbits as well.

Cheers!

 

[oldGSfan]

I

That seems pretty straightforward, but very tedious.The decal on your tank in particular looks perfect to me.

I really like the decal in my '83 850G, as opposed to the '82 GK so I may mix it up a bit. Thankfully, I am able to use these tanks as examples. I think they're the same exact tank other than color scheme too.

Thanks for posting this stuff. I'll get to my project soon, but in the mean time keep poking around the interwebs for other useful tidbits as well.

Cheers!

If you have examples, you're good. It's tedious, yes, but even a monkey like me has been fine - at least with alignment. Using an '82 that was handy, I looked for a reference point for my '83's and used a large micrometer caliper to measure in a repeatable fashion, then put painter's tape down, focusing on the letters alignment to the top of the part. You can mark with a pencil on the tape for the next piece of tape at a 90-degree angle to the first one, etc, then build out with tape to create a 3-sided box. Then I laid the decal down from one side, starting at the closed end. I left a 1/16" extra space all around (eyeballed), then centered the decal in there. This is for smaller and simpler stuff, though. All my decals came out great for positioning, but somehow the 'S' in my first tank decal attempt was bad, and I blew it. I cleaned and prepped as well as I could, but got bubbles that I couldn't resolve on the tank's 'S', so now I need to pay $$$ for another set. Jeez. By measurement after the fact, mine are spot on for the side and tail cover emblems.