thinking about repainting the bike. The plastic seat fenders and the fron wheel cover are starting to fade. How easy would it be to paint them and give them a clearcoat so they look nice and match the tank? Thanks. Feel free to share stories about painting your bike. :icon_mrgreen:
general rule: the end result is all in how well you prepare prior to paint :thumb:
It takes time but its sorta fun too and you can have a sense of pride that you put work into making your bike more original.
Here is the thread about my repaint. (http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=19968.0)
i went the krylon route,worked pretty good.
I'm thinking about going krylon fusion gloss black with layers and layers of the hardest clear in a can, I can find
krylon black satin finish for me..
My bike now has a silver base with an Alsa metallic cerulean blue with a pure blue candy and pearl and Alsa pure white tribal graphics. Frame is in the process of being stripped for a matching blue coat.
Quote from: Onlypastrana199 on January 23, 2006, 08:58:39 PM
My bike now has a silver base with an Alsa metallic cerulean blue with a pure blue candy and pearl and Alsa pure white tribal graphics. Frame is in the process of being stripped for a matching blue coat.
wow, got any pics of that?
Yep as soon as the clear is done and the frame I'll put pics up.
how bout now?! :mad:
ok ok take ur time.
Yeah I've been thinking about canning my bike for awhile now. Just wondering what sand paper to use cause I have some rust on my gs tank. Any suggestion would help, might do this on the weekend. Thanks all
I got this from another sportbike website I read every once in a while...
well you have a few options.
option one is rattle-can it. buy about 5 cans of primer, a few different grits of sandpaper (from 100 to 2000) and about 6 cans of paint thats the color of your choosing. not the best option but its quick and easy, lots of room for error or improvement.
option 2, if you already have an air compressor with a decent volume you can hit up a walmart for a cheap spray gun for about 30 bux, go to a ppg store or order some house of kolor paint online HOKPAINT.COM (to me the prices seem reasonable) and commence the sprayin- feel free to buy primer in the rattlecan, its totally sandable and cheap, if this isnt a show quality bike then it wont matter if you arent usin HOK all the way, unless your a real stickler for quality.
sand down all the old paint as close to the bare plastic as possible with a dual action sander or good ol' muscle. spray the primer LIGHTLY and evenly. dont spray thick or itll run, not to terrible on primer since its sandable but when the paint comes youll need to follow this rule. spray even strokes from one edge to the other, dont start a spray in the middle of the fairing. even left to right, right to left sprays are best. let it dry about 20 minutes and sand it with about a 500 grit. use some denatured alcohol and a rag and wipe all the sanding dust. spray primer again. sand again. let it dry about an hour and start spraying color. same rules apply for the paint as the primer. LIGHT SPRAYS, NO HEAVY COATS. PATIENCE. a heavy globby coat is a hell of alot harder to fix than a light spray with mass orangepeel. after the first coat of paint let it dry for about 48 hours. sand with a 800 to 1000 grit ( depending o the amount of imperfections you might feel the urge to use the 600 or even a 500, feel free) muliple coats are better than one sloppy speed job. follow this procedure of sprays and sands until its smooth, gradually raise the grit in between sprays to make it a fine paintjob. start at 600, nesxt coat 800, next coat 1000, and so on. when the final coat is dry and your happy with the results its time for clear. i would sand it lightly with a 2000 grit just so the paint has a tooth to it. once again wipe all the sanding dust with denatured alcohol. let dry. spray the clearcoat just as the paint, light coverage ALWAYS!!!!!
same rules apply for clear except always sand with 2000 in between coats.after youve cleared til your satisfied (which is never, a paintjob is never good enough for the person painting it) sand once more with a 200 grit, wipe all dust again with the alcohol and bust out some medium duty rubbing compound to make that paint shine!!!!!
follow the directions on the compound and after thats done wait about 2 weeks before applying the first coat of wax.
hope that helps.
btw, this would run you about 70 to 100 bux depending on what you have/need
a body shop will charge about 300 to 1000 depending on prepwork and what quality you want
To practice with a gun, use a piece of sheet metal standing vertically, helps you get your coats down without drips and practice your strokes.
Depending on what you're doing, just a straight color coat or additional graphics etc you can create different depths. A base of one color, like my highly metallic silver can create a lighter more anozied look. The candy intensifies the color or can create a different tone. My graphics are over a coat of clear to give them more depth. The parts of the tribal design that overlap are seperated by many many coats of clear to give them depth. Using a pearl with a very dark color like the dark blues people want all the time can make it look kinda matte and dull...use a lighter blue and candy if u want to do that...
On any note I like to use a base, candy, and alot of clear.
hmm I used 600, 800 and a littl 1k grit sandpaper and two cans of (I think) Rustoleum Satin finish black spray paint. No primer. I just sand the parts a crap load until they were smooth as a babies bottom and then washed the parts and dried them in a "dust free" environment and sprayed about 5-6 coats.. came out wonderful.
if I'm using a rattle-can and I do it correctly will it basically look as good as my car, or say the clearcoat my GS already has on the tank?
If you're really good at it... When I used rattle can, I had a lot of orange-peal, but high-grit sandpaper took care of that...
I'd try it and see how it comes out... If you get a few coats of color on and it's really orange-pealed, then block (or hand) sand it smooth... Then shoot the clear... You may end up having to do the same thing to the clear coat...
So, worst case: Layers of color, sand, layers of clear, sand, and WAX... Should come out pretty nice.