Well, multiple, horrendous, murderous issues with trying yo paint the finished frame with rattle cans, never getting the right results, or having the last coat of clear, blister the whole F'in thing, I'm packing it all up....
Packing up a mess of parts to go to the Powder Coaters that is!!!...With all of the supplies, effort and wasted time, I wish I would have thought of Powder Coating earlier, mentally I would have been far better off, financially, it will be worth it, but a few bucks.
(http://inlinethumb26.webshots.com/40089/2548875330073478356S600x600Q85.jpg)
(http://inlinethumb05.webshots.com/44548/2081495910073478356S600x600Q85.jpg)
I had my frame powdercoated- it looks great, but just be aware of the issues you (and anybody else thinking about pc) may have while putting it back together. The powder coating is thick and you may need to sand places down in some areas in order to get things to fit back together- athough it is quite easy to do, especially with a dremel. Ask as many places as you can for quotes- prices varied greatly for me ($175 to $300 for just the frame >:(). If you're going to a place not specifically for motorcycles- make sure there's at least somebody there who's had experience coating motorcycle parts (really ask questions about the process!). Good luck and don't forget to post pictures.
-K
At least you had a go at it.
There aren't to many area's locally for me to get Powder Coating done, and the guy I'm going to is a neighbor of my Brother and has done a 2 stroke expansion pipe in the past for me, that really came out well and held up well to the abuse.
This whole project was mainly meant as learning experience at hacking up a bike on the cheap, and making something unique and cool (IMHO), I've learned a lot (Especially from this site) and don't mind the Up's and Down's of getting it back on the road.
I was real close on the painting, the frame had come out really really good, yet there was one area that no matter how many times I brought it back to bare metal, cleaned it, prepped it, and painted it, it would blister and bubble in one confined area, the rest of it looked very acceptable. So, settling on Powder Coating, I figured I might as well get as many pieces Powder Coated that I was going to originally paint, to save future headaches with painting that might arise further down the road.
Thanks for the positive comments, pics to follow of the powder coating.
Whelp, the Coater won't do the tank, so I gotta bring that to a Body Shop for painting, though I'll wait til I get the PC parts back, so I can have the Auto body guy match up the tank color to the PC parts.
PC also said doing all of the bolt heads I wanted done, would be to cost prohibitive, so that's a no go, looks like Ill try and spray bomb them....
I've coated tanks no problem, its best to clear coat with paint on top, though today gas eats paint just as well as it dulls powder.
I'd actually worry about coating the engine cases. The reason is not so much as to whether it will get affected by oil, but powder tends to turn into a goo and run everywhere. The mating faces will get gooped up. You will ahve to carefully sand it off.
Now there are people (like ken - werase643) who dont like the fact that it gets in threads, but I dont quite find that a bother, just tap em before assembly.
Cool.
Buddha.
You can get stainless bolts in just about every size imaginable so you don't have to paint them. And if you put junk bolts in the threads before hand, the PC'r can pull them before baking.
I'm going to have a Autobody shop paint the tank...Or I may have a go at it, though that seems like a very bad idea.
There isn't to many threaded holes that will get affected by the PC'ing, but I have some dremels, 3m fiber discs, and some other tools of destruction to clean up the powder coating.
Hopefully the side covers don't melt and goo up the appearance, never thought of that.
The covers will be fine as long as the powder is made for high heat - Buddha meant the mating surface may get sprayed a little when they lay the powder.
I believe it's possible to get special powder for exhaust as well.
There are silicone plugs that they can put into the holes to keep them clean. You can go to eastwood.com which sells powder coating supplies and all kinds of paint. You don't have to buy from them, but you can see the plugs and other things as well as tutorials on powder coating so the paint shop can't fill you with BS. I found the site when Big Rich suggested using "2k Clear" from Eastwood. They have tons of products for cars & bikes as well as tons of useful information and tutorials.
I've been reading a book "How to paint your Motorcycle" from Motorbooks.COM. It has a trouble shooting chapter that describes all the problems you had and how to avoid them. I'm having great success painting the old factory clip on bars, top plates and now moving on to other parts of the bike.
I feel for your frustration. I've had to clean off a couple things when the wrinkles or drops showed up. We learn from our mistakes. People have been painting parts for as long as there have been cars & bikes. What's available today in rattle cans in amazing and spray equipment isn't that expensive. Consider reading the book, analyzing what when wrong and giving it another try.
Could you type out or explain what the book was saying about my particular painting issues? Im thinking a containment, or to many layers of paint not curing well enough?
As for the PC, its a top notch huge operation, Im expecting no trouble....
Thanks.
Rattle canning can look good, but it takes a lot of time.
Do a google search for " TwistedWheels rattle can bling" - the site is gonna be down for another hour or 2 for maintainence though.
There are so many things to consider that without knowing exactly what you did, it is hard to say. I suggest reading through the book. Everything from part cleaning, priming, sanding, etc. all have an effect on the results.
Some common things would be:
1. Not cleaning the part or letting it thoroughly dry. Lacquer thinner is a good cleaner before painting.
2. Not waiting long enough or too long between coats. Apply another coat at the wrong time and it can wrinkle: What happens is the surface of the paint is dry but under the surface still wet so another coat melts the surface making it wrinkle. The paint can tells you the recoating windows and when to do it or not to do it.
3. Not dry: if you clean or sand between coats, wait long enough to dry. Even if a day or two. On a fiberglass fairing, I thought it was dry. There was a smidgen of water in a crack. The paint wrinkled on the crack. Waited 3 days for it to dry and cure then sanded & cleaned. Waited 2 more days to insure no water hidden in the fiberglass pores & cracks. Sprayed again and all is OK.
4. Incompatible paints: you have enamel, acrylic, lacquer, urethane, epoxy and others. One paint can pull up another one. Alternating layers: Paint type A then B then A again. The second application of A could go through B and melt A causing B to wrinkle.
5. Not cleaning after sanding. next coat won't stick to the dust.
6. Not warm enough for paint to properly dry
7. Different temperatures: Bring in a cold part to paint or a hot part and you're in trouble. Paint and part should be same temperature. Paint does strange things when it hits a piece at a different temperature and suddenly has to heat up or cool down.
8. Wrong type of primer or not priming. Some newer automotive paints can get by without a primer - depends on the paint and what its going on.
9. Buying the cheap Home Depot paints.
Those are just a few things.
I clean with lacquer thinner before the first coat. I wipe wash and wipe down after sanding and let dry. Metal parts I bake in the oven at 400 degrees F for an hour or so and let cool slowly (a painter in out Suzuki Owners Club suggested that). I heat up slowly - 200, 300, 400 for a half hour each so the parts don't heat up too fast and get stressed. I turn off oven and let them cool naturally over night. Out of the oven is a piece with a rock hard finish, ready to sand or apply another coat or clear coat.
I urge you to read the book or some book on painting cars or motorcycles. If someone else is going to do it, if they don't have to powder coat. Paint would work.
Browsing past posts, I found another company with paints and color matching for bikes.
http://www.colorrite.com/
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=20350.0
I think my issue came from 2 in the list, but out of the 2-3 times it Wrinkled on me, I followed the instructions on the can of Clear...Apply Clear coat within 1hour of top coat, or after 48 hours, I tried both ways, with the same issue occurring.
After each screw up, I brought it back to bare metal, used a laq. remover product, tac ragged it, letting it dry....No issues with primer, color, yet when the clear went on (Same brand) within 1 minute, it would wrinkle.
Ah, who knows, clearly though, I don't know enough...Thanks for the info, lot of good stuff in your post, I appreciate the time and effort you took to type it out for me.
And with the Powder guy not willing to do the tank, Im going to try my hand at painting it...If it goes wrong, then Ill drop it off at my fav. body shop...Perhaps Ill do a post with pics of exactly each thing Im doing, it should get some laughs.
Kind of sounds like with primer and color, things weren't fully dry when the clear coat went on. Based on the book, you've probably got layers of dry paint over layers that aren't fully dry. Maybe the primer is not cured or you've got multiple layers of color where the top layer is dry to the tough, but acts like a sealer keeping the lower layers uncured.
I've had parts where I could scrape the paint off with my fingernail. It felt dry. Then I baked that same part. After it cooled, I couldn't do anything to harm that paint. Even where I scraped it off before, that area was hard as a rock.
Another problem mentioned can be applying too much paint or clear coat at a time. More thin coats are better than one thick coat.
What brands and type of paints are you using? What's the temperature and humidity where you're painting? I'm curious.
Page 150 of the book: "Wrinkling is usually caused by trapped solvents or repenetration. When this occurs, you've either used reducer of the wrong temperature range, recoated too soon or its way to hot to be painting........The drier top layer acts as a lid, so it cant evaporate the solvents and they just lie there, soaking into the layer below. If you recoat before this layer has dried, you'll have wrinkles at the very least....." and goes on to say "this is especially a problem with urethane paints."
I think baking the parts or waiting a long time would solve it. Baking works for me. I have been experimenting with clear coating plastic tails. (Can't bake them - they'd melt!) I bought some banged up ones to experiment on. One clearcoat may look good. Apply a different one over it that is not compatible and the clear wrinkles up. I see this because I take one tail and do strips of different clears on the same piece to judge the results. My end goal is a heavy clear on the plastics to keep dirt from getting in that edge of the detail tapes. You see that with a white bike (white/blue GS500F 2009 colors). Also to protect the old new stock parts I found for the tail of my '92. Experiment on crap before you take your one chance at doing it right on the good pieces.
I was getting ready to finish the fiberglass headlight cowling until today when I discovered colorrite. They have factory colors. Since I have a brand new factory gas tank (94 or 96), I ordered the factory red to finish it and the factory black to add detail stripes. Might be here Friday. I just have to learn to be patient.
Temp was right around 70-75 degrees, low humidity...I'm using Krylon Primer, Paint and Clear, all of the same style and variety.
I think I had issues with bottom layers not completely drying, and the top coat letting the solvents bleed through and effect the clear.