I am getting ready do repaint my tank, cowl, fairing, and side covers and i'm going to go buy a hvlp gun this weekend. Does anyone have any suggestions for a decent cheap gun (i know the two don't really go together)? I'm looking to spend around $75. I already have a 22 gallon compressor. There are both harbor freight and northern tool stores near me.

I'm alittle confused on what to get, half the things i've read say the central pneumatic (harbor freight) hvlp gun is great and the other half say they suck. I'd love some input on what to get. I'm planning on using urethane paint and will be using the gun for both paint and primer.

One other question, how much paint do I need if I'm going to paint my fairing and cowl one color and then the side covers and tank another?

oh and also what size nozzle should i get?

I am responding out of curiosity and interest as well.  I am needing this info too so I am coincidentally hijacking, lol.

Personally though, I would stay away from HF stuff.  I know some wear by it but I swear at it.  Nothing good has come from them for me at least.

As far as painting, BaltimoreGS is the one you want to talk to. He helped me out with a ton of questions over winter as I'm looking to repaint my GS when the weather outside is warm enough to do so. I ended up going with the $60 HVLP paint gun from Harbor freight, http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=90977 . Home depot also has some around $75-85 that look decent for the price, but it's much easier to find HF stuff on sale.

Anyway, I haven't gotten to use it yet, but the HF looks like it'll be more than ideal to learn how to paint, someday if I get good and need some professional looking paint jobs I'll considering buying some $200 guns(everyone that paints professionally will tell you that you need a separate gun for primer, paint, and clearcoat, but that's a lot of money to lay out for 3 guns when you're only trying to learn).

Search for posts by BaltimoreGS, he did a great write up over winter with a ton of pictures and details of the whole painting process on a GS. I'd look it up for you but I just spent 10 minutes looking up something for someone else, and I'm tired of searching!

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=94572

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xg9/R-100378501/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

the one I personally use came from advance auto.  they were clearancing all their air tools, and I picked up a brand new one for $13

the one from HF comes with 2 tips for the main gun, 1.4 and 1.8    and a 1.0 for the detail gun

There's a lot of information on painting in some previous threads so I won't go into great detail here. I did go back and add the word "paint" to my threads, I tend to use titles that have no specific correlation to the information in the thread.  The most informative one is in the Odds and Ends section of this site:   http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=50784.0

Kay's GS:    http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=50627.0

Redhen's Paint Project:    http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=50319.0

There's nothing wrong with Harbor Freight when you are starting out. My first gun was a Harbor Freight special.  While not high quality it does what it is supposed to.  I stepped up to a nice Devilbiss a few years ago that gave a better finish (but cost significantly more).  For the latest repaint on Kay's GS we used Piglet's new Devibiss gun which runs in the $300 neighborhood.  It has 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5mm tips.  The old Devilbiss gun has been retired to primer duty.

For your first paint job I think you will be fine with a cheaper gun as long as it is a HVLP (high volume, low pressure).  Devilbiss has out an economy priced spray gun line under the name Starting Line: http://www.spraygunworld.com/products/DeVilbiss/DeVilbiss%20StartinglineII.html    It looks suspiciously similar to the Harbor Freight link someone else posted so I wouldn't be surprised if they are made by the same manufacturer.

No matter what gun you use it is the prep work that really makes or breaks a paint job.  Take your time and get everything nice and smooth first.  Learn the virtues of Bondo and glazing putty.

I can paint a naked GS with a pint of un-thinned color coat so I'd imagine you'll need a quart to paint a full faired bike. Depending on your 2 tone color scheme you might get away with a pint of each color.  Since you are new, plan on wasting a lot of paint getting the gun dialed in.  It's better to waist some paint on set up than to do a half assed paint job.  I usually order supplies from www.tcpglobal.com  For Kay's GS we used Sherwin Williams base/clear.  If you have an inline oiler on your air compressor remember to unhook it and flush your air line before painting.  And don't forget to add a last chance filter to your gun.

Hope that answers your questions, let me know if you have any others.

-Jessie

Parts below done with 2 pints of paint:



Current paint gun:

thank you very much baltimore. i've actually already read most of your threads in preparation for this job a few weeks ago. you did a great job explaining everything. the gun and paint quantities were my last questions before i start actually spraying some primer and paint. i've been doing alot of bondo and sanding over the last week or two.

now i just need the weather to cooperate, there's a foot of snow on the ground from last week and we're supposed to get another 15-20'' by tomorrow morning. guess i'll just have to keep playing with the skis for now 

I cleaned up my front fender, I just need to sand down my tail too to get it ready for paint. I haven't decided if I'll try to paint it before I start riding for spring, I might just spray paint the tail and front fender to match the tank, get a couple rides in, then repaint the parts when I get downtime some weekend.

Hey Jessie, I know you had that HF paint gun, did you ever end up collecting any spare parts for those? I need to get one of these for the same model paint gun you sent me that coupon for....


I bought the one you gave me the coupon for, and I also grabbed one off the clearance rack while I was there. The only thing wrong with it was that tip that screws on that lets you adjust whether the line is vertical or horizontal. I figured no big deal because I can just use the tip from the other gun on both, but I figured I'd see if you had anything random like that sitting around. I'm not sure if there's any way to buy spare parts like that from HF or not.

plurpimpin- Good luck on your project, take your time and it should come out nice     Take some pictures of yoru progress so we can see how you make out.  Avoid the temptation of applying really heavy coats, that always leads to runs.  Wipe down your pieces with tack cloths prior to painting and between color coats to minimize dust/dirt.  And remember, if you are not happy with your first results you can always re-sand and re-paint.

tt-four-Sorry, no extra paint gun tips I can give you.  I don't know if you can even get parts for HF stuff.  The parts would probably be close to the sale price of the gun    I do have a spare set of plastics if you want to borrow them until you paint your bike.  I know it takes me forever to finish painting a bike so I have a beat up tank and plastic set (minus that damn piece under the grab bar) to keep the bike usable.  Kay's bike had been running them for all of last season but her bike is in pieces at the moment.  You brake 'em, you bought 'em policy though   

-Jessie

Haha, that little piece under the grab bar is the most sought after part of GS riders. I need to start producing them.

I don't think I need the plastics though, I appriciate the constant offers though, you're definitely the nicest guy on the internet that I've never even met, haha. I'm not too worried about my plastic. If this was just one winter off I'd wait until I got them painted, but I haven't ridden in about 3 years at this point, and when the warm weather comes I'm gonna be more concerned with getting the bike on the road instead of it being pretty. I bought a can of blue spray paint that doesn't quite match, so it'll look really nice for about 3 days and should only take 5 minutes to sand off later. I'll put it together, ride it a couple weeks, and then pull it apart to clean it. If I feel like I need to ride again before it's done I'll just ride without the front fender and tail, or I'll just borrow my wife's moped, haha. Mine might actually be running by that point in time. The tank I have is brand new, so I'm just going to try to match that color, so the bike should stay fully functional when I'm painting the other 2 parts.

I actually got very discouraged today when I went to a paint store and they said I'm going to have to spend roughly $300 or so dollars to repaint my bike "right."

I'm pretty much a low budget kinda college kid, if you catch my drift 

yeah I'm not looking forward to that part either. Maybe try a can of rustoleum from home depot, and then just spend money on good clearcoat? I prefer low budget projects myself.

This guy did a nice paint job with $111 worth of stuff, but I'm sure you can get lower than that as well...
http://customfighters.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28160