I'm interested in painting the fairings on my 06GSF all black or all white, as well as painting/tinting the windscreen black. Has anyone done this? Did you bring it to a shop to have it done, or did you do it yourself? If anyone has any experience with this, please provide some advice! Pictures are good too  . How long did it take, and how much money did it cost you?

Cheers  

i am researching this myself, and close to pulling the trigger on this. I've boiled it down to 2 options urethane or acrylic enamel.

Urethane based paint is more expensive but has better uv resistance, color life, etc. it's what's used on all modern automobiles.
http://www.colorrite.com/ get the primer, color and clear coat. you may also need hardener, thinner etc.

Acrylic enamel is the technology of pre-urethane. look at the rustoleum auto enamel line for instance.  it won't last as long but can be much cheaper.



There's also laquer based paint but this stuff will instantly melt near fuel so don't even think about it.

I prefer urethane basecoat/clearcoat systems for street bikes and a single stage urethane for track bikes (cheaper, less work if wrecked).  If you are looking for decent quality cheap paint check out TCP Global's website:  http://www.tcpglobal.com/RestorationShop/

I have had good luck with Sherwin William's Planet Color Barrett-Jackson paint line but the color selection is limited: http://www.sherwin-automotive.com/en/ProductHighlights/PaintSystems/PlanetColor/PlanetColor_Barrett-Jackson.aspx

The bikes below were painted with Barrett-Jackson basecoat and Finish 1 clear coat.  It comes in pints (thins to make a quart) which is more than enough to paint a bike if you don't go crazy.

-Jessie

Urethane is the way to go. Colorrite can match factory colors.
Eastwood is another good source for paints and especially equipment - like things for sanding, cleaning and prepping your parts.
I buy from both places. colorrite for the paints and Eastwood for the equipment. For rattle cans, Eastwood has the best clear coat. It is a 2 part in a spray can called 2k Clear. I haven't been gutsy enough to do real 2 part spray painting with an air gun. Maybe when the garage gets finished in a couple weeks.

Prepping and cleanliness are sooooooooo important.
Next comes applying additional coats at the right time (based on time, temp and humidity). Do it wrong and things will wrinkle, craze, melt off or peel off later. (Been there - done it and had it happen, re-sanded and started over).
Important to use a tack cloth between coats to get off paint dust that floats around and lands on your piece. Paint doesn't stick well to dust.

Remove stickers first with a heat gun or hair dryer. Then sand, prime, paint and clear coat.
Wait a week or more for things to set up and harden before you do your final buffing and polishing. Makes it easier to see and remove rough spots and less likely to accidentally dig into the paint.

There is a good book called "How to paint your motorcycle". You can find helpful videos from colorrite and eastwood on their sites as well as youtube.

Hoping for a sunny warm weekend. I have a white 1989 new factory belly pan to make candy red for Junior, a Gimbel seat waiting for a final clear coat and some European bars & top plates to paint.

When garage is finished, I'll explore powder coating (but you can't do that with plastics - they would melt). The contractor has also been waiting for dry weather to finish ripping into things.

I'm getting ready to do this myself soon (have been waiting for warm enough weather).

I am doing it with a compressor / paint gun

I'm most likely going to use PPG paint with a base / clear combo.  I've seen my brother do it once before, but he got some horrible orange peel effect but otherwise it turned out OK.  I tried it once with a crappy harbor freight paint gun and it turned out just OK.  This time I got a better gun so I'm hoping for better results.  Pics will certainly follow once completed.

Oh and Addidasguy is absolutely right - prep is critical to it coming out right.  If you can feel something (a scratch, bump, crack, etc.) then it will show under the paint.  It doesn't hurt that I work for 3M and can get a lot of their products (sandpaper, etc.) at the employee price to do a good job with making things smooth for paint.

Pepboys sells kits to tint car windows. You could just use it on the inside of your windscreen.

Whatever you do, don't use the tint-in-a-can that they sell for rear tail lights / headlights. The results are awful to behold... as you'd expect.