Teach me painting.

I'm looking to repaint the fairings and tank on my motorcycle.

Too make things simple (and obscure in the MC world), I'm thinking of a gloss white paint.

So, teach me, what would I need in terms of sandpaper, primer, paint and clear coat that will give a good DURABLE finish?

Mighty deep subject. Good place to start

The link RealMiniDriver posted is definitely a good resource. I'm going to add my own experience, which is: your fingers will tell you MUCH more than your eyes ever will when it comes to making sure your prep work is smooth. I can't count the number of times I have sanded something, sure that it was perfect, then run my fingers over it and discovered oh no it isn't.

Also something which will help tremendously: there are 'seal coats' which are shot just before the base coat. These typically are still slightly tacky when the color goes on and with light colors the possibility of 'ghosting' of different colors/textures from the prepped surface is much reduced. Primer will help, but the seal coat is the final assurance the color will be even.

White is great because it covers a zillion flaws and yes you will have them.

I shop for a paint gun, water separator, paint supplies, sandpaper, clean-up supplies, etc, and then give half that much money to someone who knows what he's doing.

As a bonus, I usually get the part back in 6-8 weeks. That's WAY less time than it would take me to get that done

I pulled the tank off my KZ-400 sometime last summer, figuring I'd address the rust in the tank and paint it. There were periods of months where it sat after I got the inside clean, then the outside stripped. Once I started shooting primer, it went pretty fast. Ended up with a pretty darn nice basecoat/clearcoat finish. I don't have any fancy equipment. The tank came out nice and I got the satisfaction of doing it myself. One of these days I'll take some pictures and post 'em up. The thing I needed more than anything else was LIGHT. Good golly, it's hard to spray paint in crappy light.

Knurled wrote: I shop for a paint gun, water separator, paint supplies, sandpaper, clean-up supplies, etc, and then give half that much money to someone who knows what he's doing.

QFT, if all you intend to do is some motorcycle parts.

Edit: Last winter, I did some gold leaf over the original paint on my bike. I bought a budget, but very decent, HVLP sprayer, sandpaper, cleaning supplies, etc. The killer was the duPont clearcoat. That E36 M3 is expensive, even for the bargain 'flavor'.

Here's an article I wrote for Roadracing World on how to do precisely what you're about to do.

Yes, it says "written by Sam Fleming" but that's because this was the only piece in the entire archive he didn't write. I made all the giant endurance gas tanks and painted all the bodywork for AOD through their career.

PAINT FUMES!

Read this, and hit me w/ questions.

Also - I recently had to paint a fender and headlight door for my Miata. I wanted to use a single stage system so the new stuff would "feel" like the rest of the car - early NA Miatas not having base/clear paint. I used DuPont Nason Fullthane and was very pleased with the results.

It is a urethane - I worked outdoors w/ an organic vapor respirator which is the absolute minimum PPE I'd recommend. In reality one should always use supplied air w/ anything urethane. Isocyantes are a nasty neurotoxin and should be avoided.

Anyway, Fullthane locally was $55/qt for color, $25/1/2 pint for catalyst, and $10/qt for reducer. Easy to mix and shoot, laid out very well.

I shot it over single stage sealer which was applied directly to the factory black primer which had been wet sanded w/ 800 grit.

How I started doing paint work : internet search on $50 paint job. Lots of reading. Buy some Rustoleum paint, sandpaper, and a few supplies. Already owned a few unused spray guns. Started playing around and surprised myself and the results. http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

Ok, my head has officially exploded. Can someone go pick up the pieces for me.... Please?

Most mistakes can be turned into happy trees. Except runs, you should paint a little surfer on any good runs.

ncjay wrote: How I started doing paint work : internet search on $50 paint job. Lots of reading. Buy some Rustoleum paint, sandpaper, and a few supplies. Already owned a few unused spray guns. Started playing around and surprised myself and the results.

Thank you oh so very much! I'd been investigating the roller paint option for various reasons (mainly wanting to avoid the mess/equipment/space requirements) and I'd been finding nothing but vague "I used paint, it's from Lowe's, but you gotta use the right paint" and/or crappy chalky-looking results. (If I wanted crappy chalky-looking paint, I'd leave it alone)

I guess I hadn't been looking hard enough. Your experiences and results create much confidence feeling in me.

A question. Do you think you could have just used tack cloth to clean the car before each application? Compressed air is tricky for me.